. . i '•^r .- • •-4*-. fpl -^ :^fc :il NN" ^N':v^' -:^i", ^ifcr ^M'?:- ,„' , ', , , , »0* > THE SLAVE POWER: CHARACTER, CAREER, & PROBABLE DESIGNS: AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE REAL ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE AMERICAN CONTEST. J. E. CAIRNES, M. A. PROFESSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN QUEEN'S COLLEGE, GALWAY ; AND LATE WHATELY PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. LONDON : PARKER, SON, AND BOURN, WEST STRAND. 1862. The right of translation is reserved. " I could easily prove that almost all the differences, which may be remarked between the characters of the Americans in the Southern and Northern States, have originated in Slavery." — De Tocqueville. K. D. WERR AND SOX, PRINTKKS, DUBLIN. TO JOHX STUAET MILL, ESQ. Dear Sir, I have great satisfaction in prefixing your name to the present work. Its appearance on my page will show that I have not engaged in speculation on an important subject without some qualification for the task. The sanction it gives to the views which I advocate will furnish an apology for the confidence with which they are urged— a confidence which, divided as opinion is on the sub ject of which I treat, might otherwise appear unbe coming. Lastly, the opportunity of connecting my name in public with that of one from whose works I have profited more largely than from those of any living writer, was one which I could not easily forego. Believe me, dear Sir, With sincere respect, Very truly yours, J. E. CAIRNES. ist May, 1862. PREFACE, IT is proper that I should state the circumstances under which the present volume is offered to the public. The substance of it formed the matter ot a course of lectures delivered about a year since in the University of Dublin. In selecting the sub ject of North American slavery I was influenced in the first instance by considerations of a purely speculative kind — my object being to show that the course of history is largely determined by the action of economic causes. To causes of this de scription, it seemed to me, the fortunes of slavery in North America — its establishment in one half of the Union and its disappearance from the other — were directly to be ascribed ; while to that insti. tution, in turn, the leading differences in the cha racter of the Northern and Southern people, as well as that antagonism of interests between the two sections which has issued in a series of political conflicts extending over half a century, were no less Vlll PltEFACE. I distinctly traceable. The course of events, however, since I first took up the subject, has given to it an interest far other than speculative, and has rendered conclusions, of which the value (if they possessed any) was little more than scientific, directly appli cable to problems of immediate and momentous interest. Under these circumstances I have been induced to extend considerably the original plan of my investigations, and to give the whole subject a popular and practical treatment, in the hope of contributing something to the elucidation of a ques tion of vast importance, not only to America, but to the whole civilized world. The rapid movement of events, accompanied by no less rapid fluctuations in public opinion, during the progress of the work, will explain, and, it is hoped, will procure indulgence for, some obvious imperfections. Some topics, it is probable, will be found to be treated with greater fulness, and some arguments to be urged with greater vehemence, than the present position of affairs or the present state of public feeling may appear to require. For example, 1 have been at some pains to show that the question at issue between North and South is not one of tariffs — a thesis prescribed to me by the PREFACE. IX state of the discussion six months ago, when the affirmative of this view was pertinaciously put for- ward by writers in the interest of the South, but which, at the present time, when this explanation of the war appears to have been tacitly abandoned, cannot but appear a rather gratuitous task. In a certain degree, indeed, the same remark applies to the main argument of the work ; for, in spite of elaborate attempts at mystification, the real cause of the war and the real issue at stake are every day forcing themselves into prominence with a distinctness which cannot be much longer evaded. Whatever we may think of the tendencies of democratic institutions, or of the influence of territorial magnitude on the American character, no theory framed upon these or upon any other incidents of the contending parties, however inge niously constructed, will suffice to conceal the fact, that it is slavery which is at the bottom of this quarrel, and that on its determination it depends whether the Power which derives its strength from slavery shall be set up with enlarged resources and increased prestige, or be now once for all effectually broken. This is the one view of the case which every fresh occurrence in the progress of events X PREFACE. tends to strengthen ; and it is this which it is the object of the present work to enforce. But, although the development of the movement may have deprived the following speculations of some of that novelty which they might have pos sessed when they were first delivered, still it is hoped that they will not be without their use — that, while they will assist honest inquirers to form a sound judgment upon a question which is still the subject of much designed and much unconscious misrepre sentation, they may possess a more permanent inte rest, as illustrating by a striking example the value of a fruitful but little understood instrument of his torical inquiry — that which investigates the influ ence of material interests on the destinies of man kind. CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY — THE CASE STATED. Page Causes of the "War - The popular view 3 Its superficiality 5 Slavery the central problem of American history - 6 The commercial theory i ° The claim of independence : how to be estimated i j Real cause of secession J 7 True origin of the war obscured by its proximate occasion 19 War the only arbitrament - 24 Views of the North : The Unionist sentiment - 25 The Anti-Slavery sentiment 2 7 Rapid growth of the Anti-Slavery sentiment Present aspect of the question 3° CHAPTER II. THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF SLAVERY. Different fortunes of slavery in the North and South 34 Various explanations of the phenomenon : Theory of diversity of character in the original founders 35 Theory of climate and race 36 The explanation of climate inadequate 3 7 Alleged indolence of the negro groundless - 4° Xll CONTENTS. Page True solution of the problem — Economic - - 42 Merits and defects of slave labour - . 44 Merits and defects of free labour - 47 Comparative efficiency of slave and free labour 48 ' Agricultural capabilities of North and South jo Slave and free products - - 52 Further conditions essential to the success of slave labour - 53 Fertility of the soil . . - 54 Extent of territory - . . ? ? Exhausting effects of slave culture - - <-6 General conclusion . ^8 CHAPTEE III. INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. Economic success of slavery, in what sense conceded 60 Structure of a slave society moulded by its economic condi tions - . 64 Agriculture — the sole career for slavery - 66 Exigencies of slave agriculture - 67 Results : Magnitude of plantations 68 Indebtedness of planters - - 60 ^- Unequal distribution of wealth 70 Waste lands in slave countries 7 r Social consequences 74 The ' mean whites ' ~ 75 Industrial development of Slave States prematurely arrested 7 7 Net results of slave industry 84 Constitution of slave societies essentially oligarchical 85 Baneful influence of the slave oligarchy falsely charged on democracy - 88 Each principle to be tested by its proper fruits 90 Character of the Slave Power 92 CONTENTS. Xlll CHAPTER IV. TENDENCIES OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. Page In what direction are slave societies moving 1 94 Importance of the question 95 Presumption in favour of modern slavery derived from the experience of ancient 96 Three circumstances connected with modern slavery destroy the force of the analogy : I. Difference of race and colour 99 Its effects ioo II. Growth of modern commerce 101 Its- effects : In enhancing the value of crude labour, and thus augmenting the resources of slavery - 103 In superseding the necessity of education, and thus perpetuating servitude - 105 Modern slavery extends its despotism to the mind 106 III. The slave trade : Its twofold functions in the modern system : In relation to the consuming countries no In relation to the breeding countries 1 1 2 Division of labour between the old and new states 1 14 The slave trade securely founded in the principles of population - 116 The analogy of cattle breeding 1 1 8 CHAPTER V. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. Outline of the economy of slave societies - 120 They include no element of progress 122 The mean whites - - I23 Growth of regular industry among them a moral impossi bility - 124 Consequences of the absence of regular industry 126 Extreme sparseness of population 127 Incompatibility of this with civilized progress - 129 XIV CONTENTS. Page The slaves and their masters - 131 Prospects of emancipation in the natural course of internal development - -132 Inherent difficulty of the problem - 132 Modern precedents inapplicable - 133 Economic causes not to be relied on - 134 Political and social motives the real strength of American slavery . I^ Further support to slavery in the ethics and theology of the South . j^0 Growth of the pro-slavery sentiment - 142 Its absorbing strength 14 j Its universality - 14^ Hopelessness of the slave's position - 146 Social cost of the system - - 147 Terrorism - - 148 CHAPTER VI. EXTERNAL POLICY OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. Its aggessive character 1^1 Twofold source of the aggressive spirit : The industrial - - 152 The moral . i ^ Tendency of slave society to foster ambition - 156 Narrow scope for its indulgence - 157 The extension of slavery — its sole resource - 158 Concentration of aim promoted by antagonism 159 Position of the South in the Union, naturally inferior to that of the North - - 161 Compensating forces : The three fifths vote - 164 Superior capacity in the South for combined action 1 66 Democratic alliance : its basis - 169 Terms of the bargain . 170 Twofold motive of southern aggression 171 CONTENTS. XV Page The political motive mainly operative 1 72 True source of this motive T73 Relation of the political motive to the federal position of the South 175 CHAPTER VII. THE CAREER OF THE SLAVE POWER. Position of slavery at the Revolution 1 7 7 Rise of the cotton trade - 1 7 ^ Early progress of the planters 1 79 Acquisition of the Louisiana Territory 180 Missouri claimed as a slave state - - 1 8 1 Motives to territorial aggrandisement 182 Importance of Missouri 183 Opposition of the North 1 84 The Missouri Compromise - 185 The Seminole War 1 86 Designs upon Texas 187 The tactics of aggression - 188 Views of the annex ationists 189 Texas annexed 190 Mexican war — division of the spoil 191 State of parties in 1850 192 Designs upon Kansas 193 Obstacle presented by the Missouri Compromise 193 The Kansas and Nebraska Bill — squatter sovereignty 195 Kansas thrown open for settlement - 196 Preparations of the Slave Power 197 Invasion of the territory - 198 The Leavenworth Constitution - 199 Atrocities of the Border Ruffians - 200 Reaction — defeat of the Slave Power 201 Alarm in the North 202 Formation of the Republican party 203 First trial of strength of the new party _ - 204 XVI CONTENTS. Page Hopeful prospects . 205 Southern policy of " Thorough " -206 I. Eevival of the African slave trade - 207 Agitation for reopening the African slave trado - 208 Importation of slaves actually commenced - 210 II. Perversion of the Constitution - 212 Claim of protection to slave property throughout the Union - 213 A judicial decision necessary 214 Reconstruction of the Supreme Court - 2 15 Dred Scott case - 216 Effect of the decision - -217 Further requirement — a reliable government 2 1 8 Breach with the Democratic party — Secession 220 Apology for Southern aggression - 221 Aggression of the Slave Power, in what sense defensive - 222 The apology admits the charge - 224 Attempt of John Brown - 225 Its place in current history - 226 CHAPTEE VIII. THE DESIGNS OF THE SLAVE POWER. Essential character of Slave society unchanged by indepen dence - 228 Inherent vices of the Slave Power intensified by its new position - 230 Possible conditions of independence - 23 2 I. Limitation of slavery to its present area - 233 Results of this plan - - 234 II. Territories opened alike to free and slave colonization 235 Probable effects 236 III. Equal partition of the Territories - - 238 Argument by which this scheme is defended • 239 Paradox involvecTin this view 239 Geographical conditions ignored 240 CONTENTS. XV11 Page Northern jealousy not a sufficient safeguard 242 European intervention still less to be relied on 244 Modification of slavery involved in the success of the South - 246 Probability of a revival of the African Slave Trade - 247 Irresistible inducements 249 The only countermotive - 250 Presumption from the past - 251 Public spirit among the Southern party 25 1 Sacrifice of particular to general interests 252 Sectional resistance powerless before the exigencies of public policy 2 5 4 Results 256 CHAPTER IX. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. Duty of Europe — neutrality - 258 Impolicy of intervention - 260 Obligation to render moral support 261 Two modes of settlement equally to be deprecated - 262 Practical issues at the present time 264 I. Reconstruction of the Union : Subjugation of the South, how far justifiable 266 Subjugation of the South, how far practicable - 271 Reconstruction of the Union, how far expedient 277 Necessity of a recourse to despotic expedients - 279 Plan for dispensing with despotism by reforming South ern society - - 280 The condition of time ignored - 282 Disturbing effects of immigration 283 II. Secession under conditions : Two cardinal ends to be kept in view - 285 Peculiar position of the Border States - ^ - 287 Mr. Lincoln's proposal : its opportuneness 288 Free cultivators in the Border States - - 289 XV111 CONTENTS. Page Facilities for incorporation - - 290 The line of the Mississippi 29 1 The negro question — three conditions to be satisfied 292 I. Immediate and wholesale emancipation : Main difficulty of the problem 295 The West Indian experiment ; its lesson 297 Natural difficulties enhanced in the South - 299 Impossibility of protecting the negro - - 300 The ' mean whites' ; their corrupting influence 301 II. Progressive emancipation : Advantage of dealing with the evil in detail 302 Facilities offered by society in the Border States 303 Operation of natural causes in the more southern states 303 Prospects of the ultimate extinction of slavery - 304 THE SLAVE POWER, ITS CHARACTER, CAREER, AND DESIGNS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. THE CASE STATED. THOSE who have followed the discussions in this country on the American contest are aware that the view taken of that event by the most influential organs of the English press has, during the period which has elapsed since its commencement, under gone considerable modification. The first announce ment by South Carolina of its intention to secede from the Union was received in this country with simple incredulity. There were no reasons, it was said, for secession. What the constitution and laws of the United States had been on the eve of Mr. Lincoln's election, that they were on its morrow. It was absurd to suppose that one half of a nation should separate from the other because a first magis trate had been elected in the ordinary constitutional course. The agitation for secession was therefore 2 ' ' "CAUSE'S OF THE WAR. pronounced to be a political feint intended to cover a real movement in some other direction. But when the contest had passed beyond its first stages, when the example set by South Carolina was fol lowed by the principal States of the extreme South with a rapidity and decision shewing evident con cert, when the treacherous seizure of Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbour gave further significance to the votes of the conventions, when lastly the attack on Fort Sumpter awoke the North, as one man, to arms, belief in the reality of the movement could no longer be withheld, and speculation was directed to the causes of the catastrophe. The theory at first propounded was nearly to this effect. Commercial and fiscal differences were said to be at the bottom of the movement. The North fancied she had an interest in protection ; the South had an obvious interest in free trade. On this and other questions of less moment North and South came into collision, and the antagonism thus engendered had been strengthened and exacerbated by a selfish struggle for place and power — a struggle which the constitu tion and political usages of the Americans rendered more rancorous and violent than elsewhere. But in the interests of the two sections, considered calmly and apart from selfish ends, there was nothing, it was said, which did not admit of easy adjustment, nothing which negotiation was not far more compe- THE POPULAR VIEW. 3 tent to deal with than the sword. As for slavery, it was little more than a pretext on both sides, em- ployed by the leaders of the South to arouse the fears and hopes of the slaveholders, and by the North in the hope of attracting the sympathies of Europe and hallowing a cause which was essentially destitute of noble aims. The civil war was thus described as having sprung from narrow and selfish views of sectional interests (in which, however, the claims of the South were coincident with justice and sound policy), and sustained by passions which it self had kindled ; and the combatants were advised to compose their differences, and either return to their political partnership, or agree to separate and learn to live in harmony as independent allies. With the progress of events these views have undergone some change, principally in excluding more completely than at first from the supposed causes of the movement the question of slavery, and in bringing more prominently into view the right of nations to decide on their own form of political existence as identified with the cause of the South. "The watchword of the South," said the Times* " is Independence, of the North Union, and in these two war-cries the real issue is contained." That there is much plausibility in this view of the American crisis for those who have no more know- * September 19, 1861. 4 THE POPULAR VIEW. ledge of American history than is possessed by the bulk of educated men in this country needs not be denied. Superficial appearances, perhaps we should say the facts most immediately prominent, give it some support. The occasion on which secession was proclaimed was the election of a Kepublican Presi dent, who, far from being the uncompromising champion of abolition, had declared himself ready to maintain the existing regime of slavery with the whole power of the Federal government. On the retirement of the Southern representatives and sena tors from Congress, the Kepublican party became supreme in the legislature ; and in what way did they employ this suddenly acquired power ? In passing a law for the abolition of slavery in the Union ? or even in repealing the odious Fugitive Slave Law ? Nothing of the kind ; but in passing the Morrill Tariff — in enacting a measure by which they designed to aggrandize the commercial popula tion of the North at the expense of the South. Since the breaking out of hostilities, again, some of the most salient acts of the drama have only tended to confirm the view which these occurrences would suggest. When slaves have escaped to the Federal army, instead of being received by the general with open arms as brothers for whose freedom he is fighting, they have been placed upon the footing of property, and declared to be contraband of war. ITS SUPERFICIALITY. "When a Federalist general, transcending his legiti mate powers, issues a proclamation declaring that slaves shall be free, it is not a proclamation of free- dom to slaves as such, but only to the slaves of " rebels," while no sooner is this half-hearted act of manumission known at head-quarters than it is dis avowed and over-ruled. All this, and more to the same purpose, may be urged, as it has been urged, in favour of the view of the American crisis taken by some leading organs of the English press ; yet I venture to say that never was an historical theory raised on a more fragile foundation ; never was an explanation of a political catastrophe propounded in more daring defiance of all the great and cardinal realities of the case with which it professed to deal. One is tempted to ask, whether those who thus expound American politics suppose the present cri sis to be an isolated phenomenon in American his tory, disconnected from all the past ; or, to look at the question from another point of view, whether they imagine that the coincidence of the political division of parties with the geographical division of slave and free States is an accident — that, to borrow the expression of Jefferson, " a geographical line coinciding with a marked principle " has no signifi cance. It seems almost trifling with the reader to remind him that the present outbreak is but the 6 SLAVERY THE CENTRAL PROBLEM crowning result, the inevitable climax of the whole past history of American politics — the catastrophe foreseen with more or less distinctness by all the leading statesmen of America from Washington to Webster and Clay, w^hich was the constant theme of their forebodings, and to escape or defer which was the great problem of their political lives. And equally superfluous does it seem to mention what was the grand central question in that history — the question to which all others were subordinate, and around which all political divisions ranged them selves.* Never surely was the unity of a national drama better preserved. From the year 1819 down to the * In opposition to the views propounded by the most influential organs in England, and in support of what I may venture to call the obvious (though little recognized) account of the war, I am glad to be able to quote the high authority of two leading French Reviews, the Revue des Deux Mondes, and the Revue Nationale : — " II faut aimer a discuter contre 1' evidence pour se persuader que la question de 1'esclavage n'est point la cause principale de la crise actuelle. Dans ce conflit qui depuis trente ans va toujours en s'aggravant et qui vient enfin d;aboutir a la guerre civile, quelle question va toujours en grandissant et finit par dominer tout le reste, sinon cette redoubtable question de 1'esclavage ? Us n'ont pas lu les discours de Calhoun, de Webster, de Seward, de Douglas, de Clay, de Sumner, ceux qui croient que la question de 1'esclavage n'a dans la politique americaine qu'une importance secondaire. Us oublient que toute la Virginie s'est leve"e en armes contre John Brown et ses vingt-cinq compagnons. Voici un fait d'ailleurs : quels sont bellige'rans ? D'un cote" les dtats sans esclaves, de Tautre OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 7 present time the history of the United States has been one record of aggressions by the Slave Power, feebly, and almost always unsuccessfully, resisted by the Northern States, and culminating in the present war. At the time of the revolution, as is well known, slavery was regarded by all the great founders of the Republic, whether Northern or Southern men, as essentially an immoral system : it was, indeed, recognized by the Constitution, but only as an ex- ceptional practice, a local and temporary fact. In the unsettled territory then belonging to the Union it was by a special ordinance prohibited. Even in 1819, although in the interval the Slave Power had pushed its dominion and pretensions far beyond les etats a esclaves, et Ton pretendrait que la question de 1'esclavage est (Strangere a la guerre ! Entre les etats du nord et ceux du sud il y a des e"tats frontieres, les border states, qui, sans etre des (Stats libres, contiennent moins d' esclaves que les e*tats cotonniers. Chose etrange ! la fidelite' de ces e^ats a T Union est pre'cise'nient en raison inverse du nombre de possesseurs d' esclaves; la Yirginie, qui a des esclaves se rallie au mouvement se'cessioniste ; la partie occidentale de cet etat, oasis sans esclaves, s^paree du reste par une chaine des Alleghanys, reste fidele a rUnion et lui donne des soldats. Le nord du Delaware, qui n'a plus d'esclaves, renferme a peine un se"cessioniste ; le sud, qui en a un grand nombre, contient beaucoup d'adversaires de TUnion. Le sud et Test du Maryland sont remplis d'esclaves, et en consequence de se'cessionistes ; Touest du Mary land, oii Ton voit tres peu de noirs non affranchis, est presque unanime pour TUnion. Les six mille esclaves de Baltimore appar- tiennent a 1'aristocratie de cette ville, et Ton sait que cette aris tocratic n'est retenue dans Tobeissance que par des measures de SLAVERY THE CENTRAL PROBLEM their original limits, the claim was scarcely advanced for slavery to rank as an equal with free institutions in any district where it was not already definitively established, and certainly no such claim was acknow- ledged. Of this the Missouri Compromise affords the clearest proof, since, regarded as a triumph by the slaveowners, it only secured the admission of slavery to Missouri on the express condition that it 'should be confined for the future to the territory south of a certain parallel of latitude. But what has been the career of the Slave Power since that time ? It is to be traced through every ques tionable transaction in foreign and domestic politics in which the United States has since taken part — rigueur. Le Tennessee occidental, abandonne' au travail servile, est un centre de rebellion; le Tennessee oriental, ou le travail libre 1'emporte de beaucoup, est sympathise a 1' Union. Le Kentucky ne fait pas exception a cet regie : dans les comte's du nord et de Test, oii il y a peu d'esclaves, il y a peu de se'cessionistes ; dans les autres, ou ils sont nombreux, on se prononce pour la ' neutrality' ce qui n'est qu'une forme de la trahison. Dans le Missouri, la ligne de demarcation est nettement (Stabile entre le travail libre et le travail servile. Les Alleniands detestent 1'esclavage, et forment le noyau le plus fidele de Te'tat ; les unionistes anglo-saxons sont plutot en faveur de la neutrality tandis que les maitres d'esclaves sont en armes contre 1'Union. II y a quelques sympathies pour rUnion jusque dans le Texas occidental, parce qu'on y voit peu d'esclaves et beaucoup d'Allemands. Quel est 1'dtat se'cessioniste par excellence? C'est la Caroline du sud, qui contient relativement plus d'esclaves que tous les autres (Stats. Dira-t-on encore que le defense de 1'esclavage n'est pas la cause des se'cessionistes ? S'il OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 9 through the Seminole war, through the annexation of Texas, through the Mexican war, through filibus tering expeditions under Walker, through attempts upon Cuba, through the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 through Mr. Clay's compromises, through the repu diation of the Missouri Compromise so soon as the full results of that bargain had been reaped, through the passing of the Nebraska Bill and the legislative establishment of the principle of " Squatter Sove reignty " through the invasion of Kansas, through the repudiation of " Squatter Sovereignty" when that principle had been found unequal to its pur poses, and lastly, through the Dred-Scott decision and the demand for protection of slavery in the Ter ritories — pretensions which, if admitted, would have resta des doutes dans quelques esprits, qu'on ^coute done le propre temoignage des gens du sud." — Revue des Deux Mondes, ire Nov. 1861. In an article by M. Pressense", in the Revue Nationale, the point is put with equal perspicuity and force : — " Je sais qu'on s'efforce d'en dissimuler la gravite, et que d'un certain cote on essaye de la require a un simple conflit constitutionnel, a une question de droit politique, a 1'interpre'tation du contrat qui lie efttre eux les divers Etats de la confederation puissante dont les giga*ntesques progres e"tonnaient naguere le nionde. Mais cette explication mesquine de la crise actuelle de 1'Ame'rique du Nord n'est qu'un sophisme destine" a excuser une lachete'. On essaye de donner ainsi le change a la conscience publique, qui ne comprendrait pas et ne perniettrait pas que Ton hesitat en Europe entre le Nord et le Sud, une fois que la question de Tesclavage serait nettement pose"e entre eux. Ceux qui trouvent leur interet a incliner vers le Sud se 10 THE COMMERCIAL THEORY. converted the whole Union, the Free States no less than the Territories, into one great domain for slavery. This has been the point at which the Slave Power, after a series of successful aggressions, carried on during forty years, has at length arrived. It was on this last demand that the Democrats of the North broke off from their Southern allies — a defection which gave their victory to the Republicans, and directly produced the civil war. And now we are asked to believe that slavery has no vital connexion with this quarrel, but that the catastrophe is due to quite other causes — to incompatibility of commer cial interests, to uncongeniality of social tastes, to a desire for independence, to anything but slavery. But we are told that in this long career of ag gression the extension of slavery has only been employed by the South as a means to an end, and that it is in this end we are to look for the key to the present movement. " Slavery," it seems, " is but a surface question in American politics."* The seem ing aggressions were in reality defensive movements plaisent ,a rabaisser le conflit americain a des proportions misd- rables qui niettent la conscience hors de cause ; mais cela est moins facile que cela ne semble commode, et ils ont beau faire, la vraie situation se dessine toujours niieux." The same view is sustained by Le Comte Age'nor De Gasparin with remarkable eloquence in his work, * Un Grand Peuple qui se rdeve' * Saturday Review^ Nov. 9, i8(5i. THE COMMERCIAL THEORY. II forced upon the South by the growing preponder ance of the Free States ; and its real object, as well in its former career of annexation and conquest, as in its present efforts to achieve independence, has been constantly the same — to avoid being made the victim of Yankee rapacity, to secure for itself the development of its own resources unhindered by protective laws.* Let us briefly examine this theory of the se cession movement. And, first, if free trade be the object of the South, why, we may ask, has it not employed its power to accomplish this object dur ing its long period of predominance in the Union ? It has been powerful enough to pass and repeal the Missouri Compromise, to annex Texas, to spend 40,000,000 dollars of Federal money in a war for the recapture of slaves, to pass the Fu gitive Slave Law, to obtain the Dred Scott deci sion : if it has been able to accomplish these results, to lead the North into foreign complications in which it had no interest, and to force upon it mea sures to which it was strongly averse, is it to be supposed that it could not, had it so desired it, have carried a free trade tariff? Yet not only has the South not attempted this during its long reign, it has even co-operated effectively in the passing of protective measures— nay, these enthusiastic free * Mr. Yancey's letter to the Daily News, January 25, 1862. 12 THE COMMERCIAL THEORY. traders have riot hesitated, when the opportunity offered, to profit by protective measures. With the exception of the Morrill tariff, Congress never passed a more highly protective law than the tariff of 1842 ; and this tariff was supported by a large number of Southern statesmen ; and, not only so, but gave effective protection to Southern products — to the sugar of Louisiana, the hemp of Kentucky, and the lead of Missouri, as well as to the manu factures of New England. Again, if free trade be the real object of the South, how does it happen that, having submitted to the tariffs of 1832,* 1842, and 1846, it should have resorted to the extreme measure of secession while under the tariff of 1857 — -a comparatively free-trade law? From 1842 down to 1860 the ten dency of Federal legislation was distinctly in the direction of free trade. The most liberal tariff the Union ever enjoyed since 1816 was the tariff of 1857, an(l fr was while this tariff was in force that the plot of secession was hatched, matured, and carried into operation. But there are some who * I say, " having submitted to the tariff of j 832," because, although it is true that South Carolina threatened to rise in rebellion against this measure, she stood alone in her projected revolt. Far from receiving any general sympathy in the South, it was through the instrumentality of a Southern State (Virginia), employed by a Southern President (Jackson), that the threatened movement was suppressed. THE COMMERCIAL THEORY. 13 would have us believe that it was the Morrill Tariff which produced the revolt ; and this is the most incomprehensible portion of the whole case ; since there is nothing more certain than that secession had been resolved upon, and the plot for its accom plishment traitorously prepared, before the Morrill tariff was brought forward, and even before the bargain with Pennsylvania was struck, in fulfil ment of which it was introduced. It is indeed well known that it was the absence from Congress of the Southern senators while carrying out the pro gramme of secession, which alone rendered possible the passing of this measure. If free trade were the grand object of the South, why did its senators with draw from their posts precisely at the time when their presence was most required to secure their cherished principle ? Nay, if this was their game, why did they not apply to Mr. Buchanan to veto the Bill — Mr, Buchanan, the creature and humble tool of the Slave Party ? We are asked by this theory to believe that the South has had recourse to civil war, has incurred the risk of political annihilation, to accomplish an object for the effectual attainment of which its ordinary constitutional opportunities afforded ample means.' * The writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes from whom I have al ready quoted suggests (pp. 156-157) that the conduct of the South ern senators in permitting the passing of the Morrill tariff was 14 SOUTHERN CLAIM OF INDEPENDENCE: But the difficulties of this theory do not end here. If the secession movement be a revolt against pro tective tariffs, why is it confined to the Southern States ? The interest of the Cotton States in free exchange with foreign countries is not more obvious than that of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and "Wisconsin. No class in these States has anything to gain by protective measures : nothing is produced in them which is endangered by the freest competition with the rest of the world : an artificial enhancement of European manufactures is to them as pure an injury as it is to South Carolina or Alabama : yet all these States are ranged on the side of the North in this contest, and resolute for the suppression of the revolt. It is, however, by the watch word of c indepen dence,' still more than by that of free trade, that the partisans of the South in this country have sought to enlist our sympathies in favour of that cause. We are told of the naturalness, the univer sality, the strength of the desixe for self-government. deliberately contrived with a view to make political capital out of the sentiments which they calculated on its exciting in England — an explanation which is countenanced by the fact that Mr. Tooinbs, representative of Georgia, who now holds a command in the army of Jefferson Davis, was in the Senate when the Morrill tariff was submitted to that assembly, and voted for the new law. If this was their object, never was plot more skilfully contrived or more successful. HOW TO BE ESTIMATED. 15 We are reminded of the peculiar power of this passion among the Anglo-Saxon race. The act of the original thirteen States in severing their con nexion with the mother country is dwelt upon ; and we are asked why the South should not also be permitted to determine for itself the mode of its political existence ? " It threatens none, demands nothing, attacks no one, but wishes to rule itself, and desires to be ' let alone :' " why should this favour be denied it? Now let it at once be con ceded that the right to an independent political existence is the most sacred right of nations : still even this right must justify itself by reference to the ends for which it is employed. The demand of a robber or murderer for " independence " is not a claim which we are accustomed to respect ; and it does not appear how our obligations are altered if the demand proceed from a robber or murderer nation — if national independence be sought solely and exclusively as a means of carry ing out designs which are nothing less than robbery and murder on a gigantic scale, I am assuming that these crimes are involved in the extension of slavery, and that the extension of slavery is the end for which the Southern Confederacy has engaged in the present war. These assumptions I hope to make good hereafter ; but meanwhile, it may be asked, if the extension of the domain 1 6 REAL CAUSE OF SECESSION. of slavery be not the object for which the South seeks independence, what is that object ? Let those who have undertaken the defence of that body explain to us in what way the legitimate develop ment of the Southern States, within their proper limits, was hindered by Federal restraints ? If they had grievances to complain of why did they not let the world know them ? Why did they resist all the efforts of the Northern States to extract from them a categorical statement of what they sought ? " That," says an able writer, " was precisely what it was im possible to obtain from the representatives and sena tors of the extreme South. They steadily refused to make known, even under the form of an ultimatum, the conditions on which they would consent to remain in the Union. Their invariable response was c it was too late ; their constituents would acqui esce in no arrangement.'"* Before then we allow ourselves to be carried away by the cry of the South for independence, it is material to ascertain the pur pose for which independence is desired. It is im portant to distinguish between (to quote the words of the eminent man whose name has been prefixed to this volume) " the right to rebel in defence of the power to tyrannize," and " the right to resist by arms a tyranny practised over ourselves." The causes and character of the American contest *Annuaire des Deux Mondes (1860), p. .618. REAL CAUSE OF SECESSION. 17 are not for Englishmen questions of merely specula tive interest. On the view which we take of this great political crisis will depend, not alone our pre sent attitude towards the contending parties, but in no small degree our future relations with a people of our own race, religion and tongue, to whom has been committed the task, under whatever permanent form of polity, to carry forward in the other hemisphere the torch of knowledge and of civilization. We may, according as we act from sound knowledge of the real issues which are at stake or in ignorance of them, do much to promote or to defeat important human in terests bound up with the present contest, and to in crease or to diminish the future influence for good of this country. It would indeed be a grievous mis fortune if, in one of the great turning points of hu man history, Great Britain were found to act a part unworthy of the position which she occupies and of the glorious traditions which she inherits. The present essay is intended as a contribution towards the diffusion of sound ideas upon this sub ject. The real and sufficient cause of the present position of aifairs in North America appears to the writer to lie in the character of the Slave Power — that system of interests, industrial social and political, which has for the greater part of half a century directed the career of the American Union, and which now, embodied in the Southern Confederation, 1 8 TRUE ORIGIN OF THE WAR seeks admission as an equal member into the commu nity of civilized nations. In the following pages an attempt will be made to resolve this system into its component elements, to trace the connexion of the several parts with each other, and of the whole with the foundation on which it rests, and to estimate generally the prospects which it holds out to the people who compose it, as well as the influence it is likely to exercise on the interests of other nations ; and, if I do not greatly mistake the purport of the considerations which shall be adduced, their effect will be to show that this Slave Power constitutes the most formidable antagonist to civilized progress which has appeared for many centuries, representing a system of society at once retrograde and aggressive, a system which, containing within it no germs from which improvement can spring, gravitates inevitably towards barbarism, while it is impelled by exigencies, inherent in its position and circumstances, to a con stant extension of its territorial domain. The vast- ness of the interests at stake in the American contest, regarded under this aspect, appears to me to be very inadequately conceived in this country ; and the pur pose of the present work is to bring forward this view of the case more prominently than has yet been done. But it is necessary here to guard against a misap prehension. The view that the true cause of the OBSCURED BY ITS PROXIMATE OCCASION. 19 American contest is to be found in the character and aims of the Slave Power, though it connects the war ultimately with slavery as its radical cause, by no means involves the supposition that the mo tive of the North in taking up arms has been the abolition of slavery. Such certainly has not been its motive, and, if we keep in view its position as identified with legal government and constitutional rights in the United States, we shall see that this motive, even had it existed, could scarcely, at least in the outset, have been allowed to operate. Let us recall for a moment the mode in which the crisis developed itself. It must be remembered— what seems now almost to be forgotten — that the war was commenced by the South — commenced for no other reason, on no other pretext, than because a republican president was elected in the ordinary con stitutional course. If we ask why this was made the ground for revolt, I believe the true answer, as I have just intimated, is to be found in the aims of the Slave Power, — aims which were inconsistent with its remaining in the Union while the Government was carried on upon the principle of restricting the extension of its domain. So long as it was itself the dominant party, so long as it could employ the powers of the Government in propagating its peculiar institution and consolidating its strength, so long it was content to remain in the Union ; 20 TRUE ORIGIN OF THE WAR but from the moment when, by the constitutional triumph of the Republicans, the government passed into the hands of a party whose distinctive prin ciple was to impose a limit on the further exten sion of slavery, from that moment its continuance in the Union was incompatible with its essential objects, and from that moment the Slave Power resolved to break loose from Federal ties. The war had thus its origin in slavery : nevertheless the proximate issue with which the North had to deal was not slavery, but the right of secession. For the constitution having recognised slavery with in the particular states, so long as the South con fined its proceedings within its own limits, the Government which represented the constitution could take no cognizance of its acts. The first departure from constitutional usage by the South was the act of secession,* and it was on the ques- * I am aware that this has been denied "by some English advo cates of the South, in their zeal for the cause more Southern than the Southerners ; no less an authority than Mr. Buchanan — though not a Southerner, the elect of the South — having declared that secession was unconstitutional. It would be foreign to my purpose here to enter into an argument on the constitutional question. I will therefore only say that after having carefully studied, so far as I know, all that has been written on both sides by competent persons, I have been quite unable to discover any other ground on which the claim of secession can be placed than that ultimate one — the right which in the last resort appertains to all people to determine for themselves their own form of government. How far the case of the South will stand the test when tried by this principle, I have intimated my opinion in the text. OBSCURED BY ITS PROXIMATE OCCASION. 21 tion, therefore, of the right to adopt this course that the North was compelled to join issue. The contest thus springing from slavery, and involving, as will be shewn, consequences of the most momentous kind in connexion with the future well-being of the human race in North America, wore the appearance, to persons regard ing it from the outside, of a struggle upon a point of technical construction — a question of law which it was sought to decide by an appeal to arms. It was not unnatural, then, that the people of this country, who had but slight acquaintance with the antecedents of the contest or with the facts of the case, should Avholly misconceive the true nature of the issues at stake, and, disconnected as the quarrel seemed to have become from the question of slavery, should allow their sympathies, which had originally gone with the North^to bejcarried, under the skilful management of Southern agency acting through the Press of this country,* round to the Southern side. * See a very remarkable communication extracted from the Rich mond Inquirer of December aoth, 1861, and published in the Daily News of the i7th February, 1862, in which the writer, who had just returned to the South from a mission to London, in which he was associated with Messrs. Yancey and Mann, describes the state in which he found English opinion on American subjects on his arrival here in July, 1861, and the influences brought to bear by himself and his associates upon the members of the London Press, with a view to advancing the Southern cause with the English public. The document affords such an insight into the causes which have 22 WAR THE ONLY ARBITRAMENT. Nevertheless, had the case of the North, regarded even from this point of view, been fairly put before the English people, it is difficult to believe that it been acting upon public opinion in England during the last year, that it may be well to quote a few extracts. After stating the general expectation which prevailed in the South when he left it in June last, " that the manufacturing necessities of England and France would force them to a speedy recognition and interference with the Federal blockade;" and "the equally confident impression that the commercial enterprise of England would spring at once to the enjoyment of the high prices the blockade established, by send ing forward cargoes of arms, ammunition, medicines, and other stores most needed in the Confederacy ;" and after describing the causes in the public opinion of England which prevented these hopes being realized, the writer proceeds as follows : — " I have thus endeavoured, in this most hurried and imperfect manner, to sketch some of the difficulties which met our commissioners on the very threshold of their mission. That they have addressed themselves to these difficulties with zeal and efficiency will not be doubted by the millions in the South to whom their abilities and character are as familiar as household words. During my stay in London I was frequently at the rooms of Colonel M — , and can thus bear personal testimony to his zeal and efficiency. He seemed to appreciate the necessity of educating the English mind to the proper view of the various difficulties in the way of his progress; and, with but limited means of effecting his objects, he worked with untiring industry for their accomplishment ; and, as I have also written, a distinguished member of Congress is, I believe, doing all that talent, energy, and a peculiar fitness for his position can accomplish. Without any other aid than his intimate knowledge of English character, and that careful style of procedure which his thorough training as a diplomatist has given him, he has managed to make the acquaint ance of most of the distinguished representatives of the London Press, whose powerful batteries thus influenced are brought to bear WAR THE ONLY ARBITRAMENT. 2,3 would not have been recognized as founded, at least in its first phase, in reason and justice. When the South forced on a contest by attacking upon the American question. This of course involves an immense labour, which he stands up to unflinchingly. So much for his zeal. His efficiency, with that of his colleague, is manifested in the recog nition of our rights as a belligerent, and in the wonderful revolution in the tone of the English Press. . . . The influence of this lever upon public opinion was manifest during my stay in Paris. When I first went there, there was not a single paper to speak out in our behalf. In a few days, however, three brochures were issued which seemed to take the Parisian Press by storm. One of them was the able and important letter of the Hon. T. Butler King to the Minister ; another, ' The American Revolution Unveiled/ by Judge Pequet, formerly of New Orleans— whose charming and ac complished lady, by the way, is a native of Richmond; and a third, < The American Question/ by Ernest Bellot des Minieres, the agent of the French purchasers of the Yirginia canals. These works each in turn created a great deal of attention, and their united effect upon the French mind shows the effective character of this appli ance. Messrs. Bellot and Pequet deserve well of the Confederacy for their powerful and voluntary advocacy. I can, and with great pleasure do, bear testimony to the valuable and persevering efforts of Mr. King both in Paris and London. Among the first acquaint ances I had the pleasure of making while in London was Mr. Gregory, M. P., to whom I carried letters of introduction from a Virginia gentleman long resident in Paris, who very kindly either introduced or pointed out to me the distinguished members of parliament. He had been, I found, a traveller in Virginia, and inquired after several persons, among whom was Mr. John B. Rutherford, of Goochland. During an hour's walk upon the pro menade between the new parliament houses and the Thames, he plied me with questions as to the 'situation' in the Confederacy, and seemed greatly encouraged by my replies ; more so, he said, than at any time since the revolution commenced." 24 VIEWS OF THE NORTH . the Federal forts, what was Mr. Lincoln to do ? Before acquiescing in its demand for separation, was he not at least bound to ascertain that that demand represented the real wish of the Southern people? But, after war had been proclaimed, or rather commenced, by the South, how was this to be done otherwise than by accepting the challenge ? Was the Government at once to lower the standard of law before that of revolution, Without even inquiring by whom the revolution was supported ? But in truth the President's case was much stronger than this. The Government was in possession of evidence which at least rendered it very probable that at this time the separatists were in a minority in the South, even in those places where they were believed to be strongest. At the presidential election which had just been held, the votes for the unionist candidates in the states of the extreme south exceeded those for the candidate who repre sented the secession ; in the intermediate states, the unionist votes formed two-thirds of the consti tuency ; in Missouri, three-fourths.* Will it be * See A nnuaire des Deux Mondes, 1 860, p. 608 ; also the extract from the Commonwealth of Frankfort (Kentucky), p. 606, and that from the Charlestown Mercury, p. 609, from which it appears that on the eve of the presidential election, some of the leading journals of the South regarded the secession movement as the work of a body of noisy demagogues, whose views found no response among the majority of the people. THE UNIONIST SENTIMENT. said that, with such facts before him, which were surely a safer criterion of Southern feel- ine- than the votes of conventions obtained o under mob-terrorism, Mr. Lincoln should at once have acquiesced in the demand for secession, and quietly permitted the consummation of a con spiracy, which for deliberate treachery, betrayal of sacred trusts, and shameless and gigantic fraud, has seldom been matched? To have done so, would have been to have written himself down before the world as incompetent — nay, as a traitor to the cause which he had just sworn to defend. The right of secession became thus by force of circumstances the ostensible ground of the war ; and with the bulk of the Northern people it must be admitted it was not only the ostensible but the real ground ; for it is idle to claim for the North a higher or more generous principle of conduct than that which itself put forward. The one prevailing and overpowering sentiment in the North, so soon as the designs of the South were definitively dis closed, was undoubtedly the determination to uphold the Union, and to crush the traitors who had conspired to dissolve it. In this country we had looked for something higher ; we had ex- pected, whether reasonably or not, an anti-slavery crusade. We were disappointed ; and the result was, as has been stated, a re-action of sentiment 26 VIEWS OF THE NORTH : which has prevented us from doing justice to that which was really worthy of admiration in the Northern cause. I say worthy of admiration ; for / the spectacle which the North presented at the opening of the war was such as I think might well \\ have called forth this feeling, [jit was the spectacle of a people, which, having long bent its neck before a band of selfish politicians, and been dragged by them through the mire of shameless transactions, had suddenly recovered the consciousness of its power and responsibilities, and, shaking itself free from their spell, stood erect before the men who had enthralled its conscience and its will. A com munity, the most eager in the world in the chase after gain, forgot its absorbing pursuit; parties, a moment before arrayed against each other in a great political contest, laid aside their party differ ences ; a whole nation, merging all private aims in the single passion of patriotism, rose to arms as a single man : and this for no selfish object, but to maintain the integrity of their common country and to chastise a band of conspirators, who, in the wan tonness of their audacity, had dared to attack it. The Northern people, conscious that it had risen above the level of ordinary motives, looked abroad for sympathy, and especially looked to England. It was answered with cold criticism and derision. The response was perhaps natural under the circum- THE ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT. 27 stances, but undoubtedly not more so than the bitter mortification and resentment which that response evokedjl The prevailing idea that inspired the Northern rising was, I have said, the determination to uphold the Union. Still it would be a great mistake to suppose that this idea represented the whole signifi cance of the movement, even so far as this was to be gathered from the views of the North. While loyalty to the Union pervaded and held together all classes, another sentiment — the sentiment of hostility to slavery— though less widely diffused, was strongly entertained by a considerable party, and came more directly into collision than the unionist feeling with the real aims of the seceders. " The abolition ists," conventionally so known, formed indeed a small band. They had hitherto advocated separa tion as a means of escape from connexion with slavery, but they now threw themselves with ardour into the war ; not that they swerved from their original aim, but that they believed they saw in the war the most effectual means of advancing that aim by breaking with slavery for ever ; because with true instinct they felt that, secession having been undertaken for the purpose of extending slavery, the most effectual means to defeat that purpose was to defeat secession. The anti-slavery feeling, how ever, prevails far beyond the bounds of the party 28 RAPID GROWTH OF THE X known as " abolitionists." Outside this sect are a large number of able men, including such names as Horace Greely, Sumner, Giddings, Hale, Olmsted, Weston, Longfellow, Bryant, Fremont, men who, while refusing to pronounce the shibboleth of the abolitionists, share in a large degree their views. The effect of the war has been, as might have been supposed, to bring this class of politicians into closer union than before with the extreme sect. The two have now begun to act habitually together, and for practical purposes may be regarded as constitut ing a single party. Now it is these men, and not the mere unionists, whose opinions form the natural antithesis to the aims of the seceders. Between these and the South there can be no compromise ; and, conformably to the law which invariably governs revolutions, they are the party who are rapidly becoming predominant in the North. The anti-slavery feeling is already rapidly gaining on the mere unionist feeling, and bids fair ulti mately to supersede it. In the anti-slavery ranks are now to be found men who but a year ago were staunch supporters of slavery. Anti-slavery orators are now cheered to the echo by multi tudes who but a year ago hooted and pelted them : they have forced their way into the stronghold of their enemies, and William Lloyd Garrison lectures in New York itself with enthusiastic ap- ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT. 29 plause. The anti-slavery principle thus tends con stantly, under the influences which are in operation, to become more powerful in the North ;* and it is this fact which justifies the view of those who have predicted that it is only necessary the war should continue long enough in order that it be converted into a purely abolition struggle. These considerations will enable the reader to perceive how, while the North has arisen to up hold the Union in its integrity, slavery is yet the true cause of the war, and that the real significance of the war is its relation to slavery. I think, too, they must be held to afford a complete justifica tion of the North in its original determination to maintain the Union ; but this is scarcely now the practical question. There was, at the first, reason to believe that a very considerable element of popula tion favourable to the Union existed in the South. While this was the case, it was no less than the duty of the Federal government to rescue these citizens from the tyranny of a rebel oligarchy. But do * While these sheets are passing through the press, the intelli gence has arrived of Mr. Lincoln's proposal for an accommodation with the Secessionists on the terms of co-operating with any state, disposed to adopt a policy of gradual emancipation by means of pecuniary assistance to be provided from the Federal revenues. The writer could scarcely have anticipated so early and so remark able a confirmation of the views expressed in the text. 30 PKESENT ASPECT OF THE QUESTION. grounds for that supposition still exist ? Before the war broke out, it is well known that something like a reign of terror prevailed in the South for all who fell short of the most extreme standard of pro- slavery opinion. The rigour of that reign will hardly have been relaxed since the war commenced, and must no doubt have produced a very consider able emigration of loyal citizens. The infectious enthusiasm of the war will probably have operated to make many converts ; and, under the influences of both these causes, the South, or at least that por tion of the South which has led the way in this movement, has probably by this time been brought to a substantial unanimity of opinion, a conclusion which is strongly confirmed by the absence of any sign of disaffection to the Confederation among its population.* Under these circumstances what is the policy to which Europe, in the interests of civiliza tion, should give its moral support ? This country has long made up its mind as to the impossibility of forcibly reconstructing the Union ; perhaps it has also satisfied itself of the undesirableness of this result. Of neither of these opinions is the writer prepared to contest the soundness. But this * Since the above passage was written some unionist demonstra tions in the Border states following on the success of the Northern armies, have shewn that the unanimity is not as complete as the writer imagined : still he does not conceive that what has occurred is at all calculated to affect the general scope of his reasoning. PRESENT ASPECT OF THE QUESTION. 31 being conceded, an all-important question remains for decision. On what conditions is the independ ence of the South to be established ? For the solution of this question in the interests of civil ization, a knowledge of the character and designs of the power which represents the South is re quisite, and it is this which it is the aim of the pre sent work to furnish. Meanwhile, however, it may be said that the definitive severance of the Union is perfectly compatible with either the accomplishment of the original design of the seceders — the exten sion of slavery, or the utter defeat of that design, according to the terms on which the separation takes place ; and that therefore the severance of the Union by no means implies the defeat of the North or the triumph of the South. The Southern leaders may be assumed to know their own objects, and to be the best judges of the means which are neces sary to their accomplishment; and we may be cer tain that no arrangement which involves the frus tration of these objects will be acquiesced in until after a complete prostration of their strength. If this be so, it is important to ascertain what the ob jects of the South are. For if these objects be in consistent with the interests of civilization and the happiness of the human race (and I shall endeavour to show that this is the case), then no settlement of the American dispute which is not preceded by a 32 PRESENT ASPECT OF THE QUESTION. thorough humbling of the slave party should be satisfactory to those who have human interests at heart. This is the cardinal point of the whole ques tion. The designs of the seceders are either legiti mate and consistent with human interests, or the contrary. If they are legitimate, let this be shown, and let us in this case wish them God speed : if they are not, and if the Southern leaders may be taken to know what is essential to their own ends, then we may be sure that nothing short of the effectual defeat of the South in the present war will secure a settlement which shall be consistent with what the best interests of mankind require. 33 CHAPTER II. THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF SLAVERY. BEFORE proceeding to an examination of the social and political system which has been reared upon the basis of slavery in North America, it will be desira ble to devote some consideration to the institution itself in its industrial aspects. The political tenden cies of the Slave Power, as will hereafter be seen, are determined in a principal degree by the econo mic necessities under which it is placed by its fun damental institution ; and in order, therefore, to appreciate the nature of those tendencies, a determi nation of the conditions requisite for the success of slavery, as an industrial system, becomes indispen sable. The form in which it will be most convenient to discuss this question will be in connexion with the actual position of slavery in the American continent. As is well known, the system formed originally a common feature in all the Anglo-Saxon settlements in that part of the world, existing in the northern no less than the southern colonies, in New England no less than in Virginia. But before much time had elapsed from their original foundation, it be- 34 DIFFERENT FORTUNES OF SLAVERY came evident that it was destined to occupy very different positions among these rising communities. In the colonies north of Delaware Bay slavery rapid ly fell into a subordinate place, and gradually died out ; while in those south of that inlet its place in the industrial system became constantly more pro minent, until ultimately it has risen to a position of paramount importance in that region, overpower ing every rival influence, and moulding all the phe nomena of the social state into conformity with its requirements. The problem, then, which I propose to consider is the cause of this difference in the fortunes of slavery in these different portions of American soil. Several theories have been advanced in explana tion of the phenomenon. One of these attributes it to diversity of character in the original founders of the communities in question ;* for, though proceed ing from the same country and belonging to the same race, the Anglo-Saxon emigrations to North America, according as they were directed to the north or south of that continent, were in the main drawn from different classes of the mother nation. Massachusetts and the other New England States * See Stirling's Letters from the Slave States, p. 64, where greater importance is attributed to this circumstance than it appears to me to deserve ; and compare Olmsted's Sea Board States, pp. 181-183, 220, 221. IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH. 35 were colonized principally from the elite of the mid dle and lower classes — by people who, being accus tomed to labour with their own hands, would feel less the need of slaves ; and who, moreover, owing to their political views, having little to hope for in the way of assistance from the country they had quitted, would have little choice but to trust to their personal exertions. On the other hand, the early emigration to Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas was for the most part composed of the sons of the gentry, whose ideas and habits but ill fitted them for a struggle with nature in the wilderness. Such emigrants had little disposition to engage personally in the work of clearance and production : nor were they under the same necessity for this as their brethren in the North ; for, being composed in great part of cavaliers and loyalists, they were, for many years after the first establishment of the settlements, sustained and petted by the home government ; being furnished not merely with capital in the shape of constant supplies of provisions and clothing, but with labourers in the shape of convicts, indented servants, and slaves. In this way the colonists of the Virginian group were relieved from the necessity of personal toil, and in this way, it is said, slavery, which found little footing in the North, and never took firm root there, became established in the Southern States. 3* 36 THEORY OF DIVERSE ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDERS/ This explanation, however, carries us but a short way towards the point we have in view. It explains the more rapid extension of slavery in early times in the colonies which were in their origin most pa tronized by the home government, but it does not explain why slavery, which had, though not exten sively, been introduced into the Northern colonies, should not have subsequently increased ; much less does it afford any explanation of its ultimate ex tinction in the North. It is certain the New Eng- landers were not withheld from employing slaves by moral scruples, and, if the system had been found suitable to the requirements of the country, it is to be presumed that they would have gradually ex tended its basis, and that, like their neighbours, especially since the treaty of Utrecht had secured for English enterprise the African slave-trade, they would have availed themselves of this means of re cruiting their labour market. Another and more generally accepted solution refers the phenomenon in question to the influence of climate and the character of the negro race. The European constitution, we are told, cannot endure a climate in which the negro can toil, thrive, and mul tiply, and the indolence of the negro is such that he will only work under compulsion. If it were not, therefore, for negro slavery, the world must have gone without those commodities which are the pecu- THEORY OF CLIMATE AND RACE. 37 liar product of tropical climes. Mankind, in effect, says this theory, has had to choose between main taining slavery and abandoning the use of cotton, tobacco, and sugar, and the instincts of humanity have succumbed before the more powerful induce ments of substantial gain. It would, perhaps, be too much to say that this view of the causes which have maintained slavery in the Southern districts of North America is absolutely destitute of foundation, but there can be no hesita tion in saying that, as a theory, it utterly fails to account for the facts which it is sought to explain. The climate of the oldest of the Slave States — Virgi nia, Maryland, Delaware, North and South Carolina — is remarkably genial and perfectly suited to the industry of Europeans ;* and, though the same is not true in the same degree of the Gulf States, yet it is a fact that these regions also afford examples of free European communities increasing in numbers under a semi-tropical climate, and rising to opu lence through the labour of their own hands. In Texas a flourishing colony of free Germans, among whom no slave is to be found, engage in all the oc cupations of the country, and are only prevented by their distance from the great navigable rivers, and the want of other means of communication, * Olmsted's Slave States, pp. 131, 462-3. 38 THEORY OF CLIMATE AND RACE. from applying themselves extensively to that very cultivation — the growing of cotton — which the com. placent reason ers whose theory we are considering choose to regard as the ordained function of the negro race.* " If we look," says Mr. Weston, " to the origin of the European races which inhabit this country, Georgia and Alabama and Tennessee are more like their mother countries than New England is. The Irishman and Englishman and German find in Mis souri and Texas a climate less dissimilar to that at home, than they do in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The heats of summer are longer and steadier at the South, but not more excessive than at the North. Labour in the fields is performed by whites, and without any ill consequences in the extreme South. Nearly all the heavy out-door work in the city of * " The Southern parts of the Union," says De Tocqueville, " are not hotter than the south of Italy and of Spain ; and it may be asked why the European cannot work as well there as in the two latter countries. If slavery has been abolished in Italy and in Spain without causing the destruction of the masters, why should not the same thing take place in the Union? I cannot believe that Nature has prohibited the Europeans in Georgia and the Floridas, under pain of death, from raising the means of subsistence frt)m the soil ; but their labour would unquestionably be more irk some and less productive to them than that of the inhabitants of New England. As the free workman thus loses a portion of his superiority over the slave in the Southern States, there are fewer inducements to abolish slavery." ITS INADEQUACY. 39 New Orleans is performed by whites. . . . The practical experience of mankind is a sufficient answer to fanciful rules, which, applied on the other side of the Atlantic, would surrender to the African, Spain, France, and Italy, and drive back their present in habitants to the shores of the Baltic. The three thousand years of recorded civilization in the regions which environ the Mediterranean on all its sides, prove that no part of the continental borders of the Gulf of Mexico, and none of the islands which sepa rate it from the ocean, need be abandoned to the barbarism of negro slavery. The European stock is found everywhere, from Texas to Patagonia, and in every part of that whole extent is more vigorous and prolific than any other race, indigenous or im ported. Isothermal lines are not uniform with parallels of latitude ; vertical suns are qualified by ocean breezes and mountain heights ; and America, even at the equator, offers to man salubrious abodes."* But still more fatally does the theory halt upon the other limb of the argument— the incorrigible indolence of the negro. Whatever plausibility there may have been in this oft repeated assertion in times when the negro was only known as a slave or as a c pariah in a land where his existence was scarcely tolerated, it is perfectly futile to advance such state- * Progress of Slavery, pp. 160, 161. 40 ALLEGED INDOLENCE OF THE NEGRO. ments now in the face of the facts which recent observations have revealed to us. u We, in the United States," says Mr. Sewell, " have heard of abandoned properties in the West Indies, and, with out much investigation, have listened to the planters' excuse — the indolence of the negro, who refuses to work except under compulsion. But I shall be able to show that, in those colonies where estates have been abandoned, the labouring classes, instead of passing from servitude to indolence and idleness, have set up for themselves, and that small proprie tors since emancipation have increased a hundred fold." . . . . " It is a fact which speaks volumes that, within the last fifteen years, in spite of the extraordinary price of land and the low rate of wages, the small proprietors of Barbadoes holding less than five acres have increased from noo to 3537. A great majority of these proprietors were formerly slaves, subsequently free labourers, and finally landholders. This is certainly an evidence of industrious habits, and a remarkable contradiction to the prevailing idea that the negro will work only under compulsion. That idea was formed and fos tered from the habits of the negro as a slave ; his habits as a freeman, developed under a wholesome stimulus and settled by time, are in striking contrast to his habits as a slave. I am simply stating a truth in regard to the Barbadian Creole, which here, at GROUNDLESSNESS OF THE CHARGE. 41 least, will not be denied. I have conversed on the subject with all classes and conditions of people, and none are more ready to admit than the planters themselves, that the free labourer in Barbadoes is a better, more cheerful, and more industrious work man than the slave ever was under a system of com pulsion." And, again, of an island very differently circumstanced from Barbadoes the same author writes : — " I have taken some pains to trace the Creole labourers of Trinidad from the time of eman cipation, after they left the estates and dispersed, to the present day ; and the great majority of them can, I think, be followed, step by step, not down ward in the path of idleness and poverty, but up ward in the scale of civilization to positions of greater independence."* This testimony of a per fectly unimpassioned witness, coming after ten years' further experience in corroboration of the evi dence given by Mr. Bigelow in 1850, ought to set this question at rest. There is not a tittle of evidence to show that the aversion of the negro to labour is naturally stronger than that of any other branch of the human family. So long as he is compelled to work for the exclusive benefit of a master, he will be inclined to evade his task by * Sewell's Ordeal of Free Labour in the West Indies, pp. 34-35, 39-40. And for evidence to the same effect respecting the Jamai can negroes, see post, pp. 198, 202, &c. 42, TRUE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM ECONOMIC. every means in his power, as the white man would do under similar circumstances ; but emancipate him, and subject him to the same motives which act upon the free white labourer, and there is no reason to believe he will not be led to exert himself with equal energy.* A circumstance more influential in determining the history of slavery in America than either origin or climate is pointed at by De Tocqueville in his remark, that the soil of New England " was entirely opposed to a territorial aristocracy." " To bring that refractory land into cultivation, the constant and interested exertions of the owner himself were necessary ; and, when the ground was prepared, its produce was found to be insufficient to enrich a * " Considerons," says M. De Gasparin, " ces jolies chaumieres, ces mobiliers propres et presque Elegants, ces jardins, cet air gene"- ral de bien-etre et de civilisation; interrogeons ces noirs dont 1'as- pect physique s'est deja modine" sous 1'influence de la liberte", ces iioirs dont le nombre cUScroissait rapidement a I'dpoque de 1'escla- vage et commence au contraire a s'accroitre depuis 1'affranchisse- rnent ; ils nous parleront de leur bonheur. Les uns sont devenus proprietaires et travaillent pour leur propre compte (ce nest pas un crime, j'imagine), les autres s'associent pour affermer de grandes plantations ou portent peut-etre aux usines des riches planteurs les cannes recoltees chez enx ; ceux-ci sont marchands, beaucoup louent leurs bras comme cultivateurs. Quels que soient les torts d'un certain nombre d'individus, 1' ensemble des negres libres a merite" ce te"moignage rendu en 1857 par le gouverneur de Tabago : ' Je nie que nos iioirs de la campagne aient des habitudes de paresse. II n'existe pas dans le nionde une classe aussi industrieuse.' " — Un Grand Peuple, p. 312. TRUE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM — ECONOMIC. 43 master and a farmer at the same time. The land was then naturally broken up into small portions which the proprietor cultivated for himself." Such a country, for reasons which will presently be more fully indicated, was entirely unsuited to cultivation by slave labour ; but what I wish here to remark is, that this fact, important as it is with reference to our subject, is yet insufficient in itself to afford the solution which we seek ; for, though it would ac count for the disappearance of slavery from the New England States, it fails entirely when applied to the country west and south of the Hudson, which is for the most part exceedingly fertile, but in which, nevertheless, slavery, though extensively introduced, has not been able to maintain itself. To understand, therefore, the conditions on which the success of a slave regime depends, we must advert to other con siderations than any which have yet been adduced. The true causes of the phenomenon will appear if we reflect on the characteristic advantages and dis advantages which attach respectively to slavery and free labour, as productive instruments, in connex ion with the external conditions under which these forms of industry came into competition in North America. The economic advantages of slavery are easily stated : they are all comprised in the fact that the employer of slaves has absolute power over his 44 MERITS AND DEFECTS OF SLAVE LABOUR. workmen, and enjoys the disposal of the whole fruit of their labours. Slave labour, therefore, admits of the most complete organization, that is to say, it may be combined on an extensive scale, and directed by a controlling mind to a single end, and its cost can never rise above that which is necessary to maintain the slave in health and strength. On the other hand, the economical defects of slave labour are very serious. They may be summed up under the three following heads: — it is given reluc tantly ; it is unskilful ; it is wanting in versatility. It is given reluctantly, and consequently the industry of the slave can only be depended on so long as he is watched. The moment the master's eye is withdrawn, the slave relaxes his efforts. The cost of slave labour will therefore, in great measure, depend on the degree in which the work to be performed admits of the workmen being employed in close proximity to each other. If the work be such that a large gang can be employed with efficiency within a small space, and be thus brought under the eye of a single overseer, the expense of superintendence will be slight ; if, on the other hand, the nature of the work requires that the workmen should be dispersed over an extended area, the number of overseers, and therefore, the cost of the labour which requires this supervision, will be proportionately increased. The cost of MERITS AND DEFECTS OF SLAVE LABOUR. 45 slave-labour thus varies directly with the degree in which the work to be done requires dispersion of the labourers, and inversely as it admits of their con centration. Further, the work being performed reluctantly, fear is substituted for hope, as the stimulus to exertion. But fear is ill calculated to draw from a labourer all the industry of which he is capable. "Fear," says Bentham, "leads the labourer to hide his powers, rather than to show them ; to remain below, rather than to surpass him self." "By displaying superior capacity, the slave would only raise the measure of his ordinary duties ; by a work of supererogation he would only prepare punishment for himself." He therefore seeks, by concealing his powers, to reduce to the lowest the standard of requisition. " His ambition is the reverse of that of the freeman ; he seeks to de scend in the scale of industry, rather than to ascend." Secondly, slave labour is unskilful, and this, not only because the slave, having no interest in his work, has no inducement to exert his higher faculties, but because, from the ignorance to which he is of necessity condemned, he is incapable of doing so. In the Slave States of North America, the education of slaves, even in the most rudimen tary form, is proscribed by law, and consequently their intelligence is kept uniformly and constantly at the very lowest point. " You can make a nigger 46 MERITS AND DEFECTS OF FREE LABOUR. work," said an interlocutor in one of Mr. Olmsted's dialogues, " but you cannot make him think." He is therefore unsuited for all branches of industry which require the slighest care, forethought, or dexterity. He cannot be made to co-operate with machinery ; he can only be trusted with the coarsest implements ; he is incapable of all but the rudest forms of labour.* But further, slave labour is eminently defective in point of versatility. The difficulty of teaching the slave anything is so great, that the only chance of turning his labour to profit is, when he has once learned a lesson, to keep him to that lesson for life. Where slaves, therefore, are employed there can be no variety of production. If tobacco be cultivated, * " The reason was, that the negro could never be trained to exercise judgment ; he cannot be made to use his mind ; he always depends on machinery doing its own work, and cannot be made to watch it. He neglects it until something is broken or there is great waste. "We have tried rewards and punishments, but it makes no difference, It's his nature, and you cannot change it. All men are in iolent and have a disinclination to labour, but this is a great deal stronger in the African race than in any other. In working niggers, we must always calculate that they will not labour at all except to avoid punishment, and they will never do more than just enough to save themselves from being punished, and no amount of punishment will prevent their working carelessly and indifferently. It always seems on the plantation as if they took pains to break all the tools and spoil all the cattle that they possibly can, even when they know they'll be punished for it." — Olmsted's Seaboard Slave /States, pp. 104, 105. MERITS AND DEFECTS OF FREE LABOUR. 47 tobacco becomes the sole staple, and tobacco is produced whatever be the state of the market, and whatever be the condition of the soil.* This pecu liarity of slave-labour, as we shall see, involves some very important consequences. Such being the character of slave-labour, as an industrial instrument, let us now consider the qualities of the agency with which, in the coloniza tion of North America, it was brought into compet ition. This was the labour of peasant proprietors, a productive instrument, in its merits and defects, the exact reverse of that with which it was called upon to compete. Thus, the great and almost the sole excellence of slave-labour is, as we have seen, its capacity for organization ; and this is precisely the circumstance with respect to which the labour of peasant proprietors is especially defective. In a community of peasant proprietors, each workman labours on his own account, without much reference to what his fellow-workmen are doing. There is no commanding mind to whose guidance the whole labour force will yield obedience, and under whose control it may be directed by skilful combinations to the result which is desired. Nor does this system aiford room for classification and economical dis tribution of a labour force in the same degree as the system of slavery. Under the latter, for * Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, pp. 337 to 339. 48 COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCY OF example, occupation may be found for a whole family of slaves, according to the capacity of each member, in performing the different operations connected with certain branches of industry — say, the culture of tobacco, in which the women and children may be employed in picking the worms off the plants, or gathering the leaves as they become ripe, while the men are engaged in the more la borious tasks ; but a small proprietor, whose chil dren are at school, and whose wife finds enough to occupy her in her domestic duties, can com mand for all operations, however important or however insignificant, no other labour than his own, or that of his grown-up sons — labour which would be greatly misapplied in performing such manual operations as I have described. His team of horses might be standing idle in the stable, wrhile he was gathering tobacco leaves or picking worms, an arrangement which would render his work exceedingly costly. The system of peasant proprietorship, therefore, does not admit of combina tion and classification of labour in the same degree as that of slavery. But if in this respect it lies under a disadvantage as compared with its rival, in every other respect it enjoys an immense superiority. The peasant proprietor, appropriating the whole produce of his toil, needs no other stimulus to exertion. Superintendence is here completely dis- SLAVE AND FREE LABOUR. 49 pensed with. The labourer is under the strongest conceivable inducement to put forth, in the further ance of his task, the full powers of his mind and body ; and his mind, instead of being purposely stinted and stupified, is enlightened by education, and aroused by the prospect of reward.* Such are the two productive agencies which came into competition on the soil of North America. If we now turn to the external conditions under which the competition took place, we shall, I think, have no difficulty in understanding the success of each respectively in that portion of the Continent in which it did in fact succeed. The line dividing the Slave from the Free States marks also an important division in the agricultural capabilities of North America. North of this line, the products for which the soil and climate are best adapted are cereal crops, while south of it the pre vailing crops are tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar ; and these two classes of crops are broadly distin guished in the methods of culture suitable to each. The cultivation of the one class, of which cotton may be taken as the type, requires for its efficient conduct that labour should be combined and organ ized on an extensive scale, f On the other hand, for * See North America, its Agriculture and Climate, by Kobert Kussell, chapter viii. t Ibid., p. 14 T. 4 50 AGRICULTURAL CAPABILITIES OF the raising of cereal crops this condition is not so essential. Even where labour is abundant and that labour free, the large capitalist does not in this mode of farming appear on the whole to have any preponderating advantage over the small proprietor, who, with his family, cultivates his own farm, as the example of the best cultivated states in Europe proves. Whatever superiority he may have in the power of combining and directing labour seems to be compensated by the greater energy and spirit which the sense of property gives to the exertions of the small proprietor. But there is another essential circumstance in which these two classes of crops differ. A single labourer, Mr. Russell tells us,* can cultivate twenty acres of wheat or Indian corn, while he cannot manage more than two of tobacco, or three of cotton. It appears from this that to bacco and cotton fulfil that condition which we saw was essential to the economical employment of slaves — the possibility of working large numbers within a limited space ; while wheat and Indian corn, in the cultivation of which the labourers are dis persed over a wide surface, fail in this respect. We thus find that cotton, and the class of crops of which cotton may be taken as the type, favour the employ ment of slaves in the competition with peasant pro prietors in two leading ways : first, they need ex- * Russell's North America, pp. 141, 164. NORTH AND SOUTH. 5 I tensive combination and organization of labour — requirements which slavery is eminently calculated to supply, but in respect to which the labour of peasant proprietors is defective ; and secondly, they allow of labour being concentrated, and thus mini mize the cardinal evil of slave-labour — the reluct ance with which it is yielded. On the other hand, the cultivation of cereal crops, in which extensive combination of labour is not important, and in which the operations of industry are widely diffused, offers none of these advantages for the employ ment of slaves,* while it is remarkably fitted to bring out in the highest degree the especial excel lencies of the industry of free proprietors. Owing to * The same observation had been made by De Tocqueville, who in the following passage has suggested a further reason for the unsuitableness of slave-labour for raising cereal crops : — " It has been observed that slave-labour is a very expensive method of cultivating corn. The farmer of cornland in a country where slavery is unknown, habitually retains a small number of labourers in his service, and at seed-time and harvest he hires several addi tional hands, who only live at his cost for a short period. But the agriculturist in a slave state is obliged to keep a large number of slaves the whole year round, in order to sow his fields and to gather in his crops, although their services are only required for a few- weeks ; but slaves are unable to wait till they are hired, and to subsist by their own labour in the mean time like free labourers : in order to have their services, they must be bought. Slavery, independently of its general disadvantages, is therefore still more inapplicable to countries in which corn is cultivated than to those which produce crops of a different kind." — Democracy in America, vol. ii. p. 233. 4* 52 SLAVE AND FREE PRODUCTS. these causes it has happened that slavery has been maintained in the Southern States, which favour the growth of tobacco, cotton, and analogous products, while, in the Northern States, of which cereal crops are the great staple, it from an early period declined and has ultimately died out. And in confirmation of this view it may be added that wherever in the Southern States the external conditions are espe cially favourable to cereal crops, as in parts of Vir ginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and along the slopes of the Alleghanies, there slavery has always failed to maintain itself. It is owing to this cause that there now exists in some parts of the South a con siderable element of free labouring population. These considerations appear to explain the perma nence of slavery in one division of North America, and its disappearance from the other ; but there are other conditions essential to the economic success of the institution besides those which have been brought into view in the above comparison, to which it is necessary to advert in order to a right understanding of its true basis. These are high fertility in the soil, and a practically unlimited extent of it. The necessity of these conditions to slavery will be apparent by reflecting on the unskilfulness and want of versatility in slave labour to which we have already referred. OTHER CONDITIONS DEMANDED BY SLAVE LABOUR. 53 When the soils are not of good quality cultivation needs to be elaborate ; a larger capital is expended ; and with the increase of capital the processes be come more varied, and the agricultural implements of a finer and more delicate construction. With such implements slaves cannot be trusted, and for such processes they are unfit.* It is only, there- * " I am here shewn tools," says Mr. Olmsted, " that no man in his senses, with us, would allow a labourer, to whom he was paying wages, to be encumbered with ; and the excessive weight and clum siness of which, I would judge, would make work at least ten per cent, greater than with those ordinarily used with us. And I am assured that, in the careless and clumsy way they must be used by the slaves, anything lighter or less rude could not be furnished them with good economy, and that such tools as we constantly give our labourers, and find our profit in giving them, would not last out a day in a Virginia cornfield — much lighter and more free from stones though it be than ours. " So, too, when I ask why mules are so universally substituted or horses on the farm, the first reason given, and confessedly the most conclusive one, is that horses cannot bear the treatment that they always must get from negroes ; horses are always soon foun dered or crippled by them, while mules will bear cudgelling, and lose a meal or two now and then, and not be materially injured, and they do not take cold or get sick, if neglected or overworked. But I do not need to go further than to the window of the room in which I am writing, to see at almost any time, treatment of cattle that would insure the immediate discharge of the driver by almost any farmer owning them in the North." In another State, a South ern farmer describes to him " as a novelty, a plough ' with a sort of whig, like/ on one side, that pushed off and turned over a slice of the ground ; from which it appeared that he had, until recently, never seen a mould-board ; the common ploughs of this country being constructed on the same principle as those of the Chinese, 54 FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. fore, where the natural fertility of the soil is so great as to compensate for the inferiority of the cultivation,* where nature does so much as to leave little for art, and to supersede the necessity of the more difficult contrivances of industry, that slave labour can be turned to profitable account, f Further, slavery, as a permanent system, has need not merely of a fertile soil, but of a practically un limited extent of it. This arises from the defect of slave labour in point of versatility. As has been already remarked, the difficulty of teaching the slave anything is so great — the result of the com pulsory ignorance in which he is kept, combined with want of intelligent interest in his work — that the only chance of rendering his labour profitable and only rooting the ground like a hog or a mole — not cleaving and turning." — Seaboard Slave States, pp. 46, 47, 402. * Mr. Eussell (pp. 164, 165) states that the soil on which the sea-island cotton is raised is " poor, consisting for the most part of light sand ; " hut this is scarcely an exception to the statement in the text. The peculiar qualities of the soil in question, and the high price which its products are consequently enabled to com mand, render it, in an economic sense, " a fertile soil," however it may be designated by an agriculturist as " poor." f In a debate in the House of Lords last session on the annex ation of St. Domingo by Spain, it was stated by the Duke of New castle, that, in reply to the remonstrances of the British govern ment relative to the apprehended introduction of slavery into that island, the Spanish government had referred to the great fertility of the soil of St. Domingo, which renders slavery unnecessary; in which reasoning his grace, as well as Lord Brougham, appeared to aquiesce. EXTENT OF TERRITORY. 55 is, when he has once learned a lesson, to keep him to that lesson for life. Accordingly where agricul tural operations are carried on by slaves the busi ness of each gang is always restricted to the raising of a single product.* Whatever crop be best suited to the character of the soil and the nature of slave industry, whether cotton, tobacco, sugar, or rice, that crop is cultivated, and that crop only. Ko- tation of crops is thus precluded by the conditions of the case. The soil is tasked again and again to yield the same product, and the inevitable re- * " The culture [of tobacco] being once established [in Virginia] there were many reasons," says Mr. Olmsted, " growing out of the social structure of the colony, which for more than a century kept the industry of the Virginians confined to this one staple. These reasons were chiefly the difficulty of breaking the slaves, or training the bond-servants to new methods of labour ; the want of enterprise or ingenuity in the proprietors to contrive other profitable occupa tions for them ; and the difficulty or expense of distributing the guard or oversight, without which it was impossible to get any work done at all, if the labourers were separated, or worked in any other way than side by side, in gangs, as in the tobacco fields. Owing to these causes, the planters kept on raising tobacco with hardly sufficient intermission to provide themselves with the gross est animal sustenance, though often by reason of the excessive quantity raised, scarcely anything could be got for it." . . "Tobacco is not now considered peculiarly and excessively exhaustive : in a judicious rotation, especially as a preparation for wheat, it is an ad mirable fallow-crop, and under a scientific system of agriculture, it is grown with no continued detriment to the soil. But in Virginia it was grown without interruption or alteration, and the fields ra pidly deteriorated in fertility."-— Seaboard Slave States, pp. 237, 238. 56 EXHAUSTING EFFECTS OF suit follows. After a short series of years its fer tility is completely exhausted, the planter abandons the ground which he has rendered worthless, and passes on to seek in new soils for that fertility under which alone the agencies at his disposal can be profitably employed. The practical results of the system are thus described by a native of the South : — " I can show you with sorrow, in the older portions of Alabama, and in my native county of Madison, the sad memorials of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton. Our small planters, after taking the cream off their lands, unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are going further west and south in search of other virgin lands, which they may and will despoil and impoverish in like manner. Our wealthier planters, with greater means and no more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbours, extending their plan tations, and adding to their slave force. The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller pro fits, and to give their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many, who are merely inde pendent. . . In traversing that county one will dis cover numerous farm-houses, once the abode of in dustrious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted, and dilapidated ; he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced, aban doned, and covered with those evil harbingers — fox- SLAVE CULTURE. 57 tail and broom-sedge ; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering walls of once thrifty villages ; and will find ' one only master grasps the whole domain' that once furnished happy homes for a dozen families. Indeed, a country in its infancy, where, fifty years ago, scarce a forest tree had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas ; the fresh ness of its agricultural glory is gone, the vigour of its youth is extinct, and the spirit of desolation seems brooding over it."* Even in Texas, before it had yet been ten years under the dominion of this devastating system, Mr. Olmsted tells us that the spectacle so familiar and so melancholy in all the older Slave States was already not unfrequently seen by the traveller — " an abandoned plantation of ' worn-oat7 fields with its little village of dwell ings, now a home only for wolves and vultures." Slave cultivation, therefore, precluding the con ditions of rotation of crops or skilful management, tends inevitably to exhaust the land of a country, and consequently requires for its permanent success not merely a fertile soil but a practically unlimited extent of it. f * Address of the Hon. C. C. Clay, jun., a slaveholder and advo cate of slavery, reported by the author in De Boris Review, and quoted by Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. $j6. f Olmsted's Texas, p. xiv. If there be any fact upon which all 5 GENERAL CONCLUSION. To sum up, then, the conclusions at which we have arrived, the successful maintenance of slavery, as a system of industry, requires the following con- ditions : — ist. Abundance of fertile soil ; and, 2nd. a crop the cultivation of which demands combina tion and organization of labour on an extensive scale, and admits of its concentration. It is owing to the presence of these conditions that slavery has maintained itself in the Southern States of North America, and to their absence that it has disap peared from the Northern States. competent witnesses to the condition of the Slave States are agreed it is the rapid deterioration of the soil under slave cultivation. On this point English, French, and Americn writers, the opponents and advocates of slavery, are at one. Yet a writer in the Saturday Review (ISTov. 2, 1861) does not hesitate, on his own unsupported authority, to characterize this belief as " a popular fallacy." If it be a fallacy, it is certainly not only a popular but a plausible one, since it has succeeded in deceiving Miss Martineau, Olmsted, Russell, Stirling, and every writer of the least pretension to au thority on the subject, 110 matter what his leanings. It is for the reader to make his choice between their united testimony and the closet experience of a Saturday Reviewer. 59 CHAPTER III. INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF SLAVE COMMUNITIES. THE explanation offered in the last chapter of the success and failure of slavery in different portions of North America resolved itself into the proposition, that in certain cases the institution was found to be economically profitable while it proved unprofi table in others. From this position — the profitable ness of slavery under given external conditions — the inference is generally made by those who advo cate or look with indulgence on the system, that slavery must be regarded as conducive to at least the material well-being of countries in which these conditions exist ; and these conditions being admit tedly present in the Slave States of North America, it is concluded that the abolition of slavery in those states would necessarily be attended with a dimi nution of their wealth, and by consequence, owing to the mode in which the interests of all nations are identified through commerce, with a corre sponding injury to the material interests of the rest of the world. In this manner it is attempted to enlist the selfish feelings of mankind in favour of the institution ; and it is not impossible that many persons, who would be disposed to condemn it upon 60 ECONOMIC SUCCESS OF SLAVERY : moral grounds, are thus led to connive at its exist ence. It will therefore be desirable, before pro ceeding further with the investigation of our subject, to ascertain precisely the extent of the admission in favour of the system which is involved in the fore going explanation of its success. And, in the first place, it must be remarked that the profitableness which has been attributed to slavery is profitableness estimated exclusively from the point of view of the proprietor of slaves. Pro fitableness in this sense is all that is necessary to ac count for the introduction and maintenance of the system (which was the problem with which alone we were concerned), since it was with the proprietors that the decision rested. But those who are ac quainted with the elementary principles which govern the distribution of wealth, know that the profits of capitalists may be increased by the same process by which the gross revenue of a country is diminished, and that therefore the community as a whole may be impoverished through the very same means by which a portion of its number is enriched. The economic success of slavery, therefore, is per fectly consistent with the supposition that it is pre judicial to the material well-being of the country where it is established. The argument, in short, comes to this : the interests of slave-masters — or rather that which slave-masters believe to be their IN WHAT SENSE CONCEDED. 6 1 interests — are no more identical with the interests of the general population in slave countries in the matter of wealth, than in that of morals or politics. That which benefits, or seems to benefit, the one in any of these departments, may injure the other. It follows, therefore, that the economic advantages possessed by slavery, which were the inducement to its original establishment and which cause it still to be upheld, are perfectly compatible with its being an obstacle to the industrial development of the country, and at variance with the best interests, material as well as moral, of its inhabitants. Further, the profitableness which has been at tributed to slavery does not even imply that the system is conducive to the interests (except in the narrowest sense of the word) of the class for whose especial behoof it exists. Individuals and classes may always be assumed to follow their own interests according to their lights and tastes ; but that which their lights and tastes point out as their interest will vary with the degree of their intelligence and the character of their civilization. When the in telligence of a class is limited and its civilization low, the view it will take of its interests will be correspondingly narrow and sordid. Extravagant and undue importance will be attached to the mere animal pleasures. A small gain obtained by coarse and obvious methods will be preferred to a great 62 ECONOMIC SUCCESS OF SLAVERY : one which requires a recourse to more refined ex pedients ; and the future well-being of the race will be regarded as of less importance than the aggrandisement of the existing generation. But our admissions in favour of slavery require still further qualification. The establishment of slavery in the Southern States was accounted for by its superiority in an economic point of view over free labour, in the form in which free labour ex isted in America at the time when that continent was settled. Now, the superiority of slavery over free labour to which its establishment was originally owing, is by no means to be assumed as still exist ing in virtue of the fact that slavery is still main tained. Of two systems one may at a given period be more profitable than the other, and may on this account be established, but may afterwards cease to be so, and yet may nevertheless continue to be upheld, either from habit, or from unwillingness to adopt new methods, or from congeniality with tastes which have been formed under its influence. It is a difficult and slow process under all circum stances to alter the industrial system of a country ; but the difficulty of exchanging one form of free industry for another is absolutely inappreciable when compared with that which we encounter when we attempt to substitute free for servile institutions. It is therefore quite possible — how far the case is IN WHAT SENSE CONCEDED. 63 actually so I shall afterwards examine — that the persistent maintenance of the system at the present day may be due less to its economical advantages than to the habits and tastes it may have engen dered, and to the enormous difficulty of getting rid of it. Since the settlement of the Southern States a vast change has taken place in the American continent. Free labour, which was then scarce and costly, has now in many of the large towns become superabundant ; and it is quite possible that, even with external conditions so favourable to slavery as the southern half of North America undoubtedly presents, free labour would now, on a fair trial, be found more than a match for its antagonist. Such a trial, however, is not possible under the present regime of the South. Slavery is in posses sion of the field, and enjoys all the advantages which possession in such a contest confers. The concession then in favour of slavery, involved in the explanation given of its definitive establish ment in certain portions of North America, amounts to this, that under certain conditions of soil and climate, cultivation by slaves may for a time yield a larger net revenue than cultivation by certain forms of free labour. This is all that needs to be assumed to account for the original establishment of slavery. But the maintenance of the institution at the present day does not imply even this quantum of advantage 64 STRUCTURE OF A SLAVE SOCIETY in its favour ; since, owing to the immense difficulty of getting rid of it when once established on an ex tensive scale, the reasons for its continuance (re garding the question from the point of view of the slaveholders) may, where it has once obtained a firm footing, prevail over those for its abolition, even though it be far inferior as a productive in strument to free-labour. The most, therefore, that can be inferred from the existence of the system at the present day is that it is self-supporting. Having now cleared the ground from the several false inferences with which the economic success of slavery, such as it is, is apt to be surrounded, I proceed to trace the consequences, economic social and political, which flow from the institution. The comparative anatomist, by reasoning on those fixed relations between the different parts of the animal frame which his science reveals to him, is able from a fragment of a tooth or bone to de termine the form, dimensions, and habits of the creature to which it belonged ; and with no less accuracy, it seems to me, may a political economist, by reasoning on the economic character of slavery and its peculiar connexion with the soil, deduce its leading social and political attributes, and almost construct, by way of a priori argument, the entire system of the society of which it forms the founda tion. A brief consideration of the economic prin- MOULDED BY ITS ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 65 ciples on which, as we have seen in a former chapter, slavery supports itself, will enable us to illustrate this remark. It was then seen that slave labour is, from the nature of the case, unskilled labour ; and it is evi dent that this circumstance at once excludes it from the field of manufacturing and mechanical industry. Where a workman is kept in compulsory ignorance, and is, at the same time, without motive for exerting his mental faculties, it is quite impossible that he should take part with efficiency in the difficult and delicate operations which most manufacturing and mechanical processes involve. The care and dex terity which the management of machinery requires is not to be obtained from him, and he would often do more damage in an hour than the produce of his labour for a year would cover. Slavery, therefore, at least in its modern form, has never been, and can never be, employed with success in manufacturing industry. And no less plain is it that it is unsuited to the functions of commerce ; for the soul of com merce is the spirit of enterprise, and this is ever found wanting in communities where slavery exists : their prevailing characteristics are subjection to routine and contempt for money-making pursuits. Moreover, the occupations of commerce are abso lutely prohibitive of the employment of servile la bour. A mercantile marine composed of slaves is 5 66 AGRICULTURE — THE SOLE CAREER FOR SLAVERY. a form of industry which the world has not yet seen. Mutinies in mid-ocean and desertions the moment the vessel touched at foreign ports would quickly reduce the force to a cipher. Slavery, therefore, excluded by these causes from the field of manufactures and commerce, finds its natural career in agriculture ; and, from what has been already established respecting the peculiar qualities of slave labour, we may easily divine the form which agricultural industry will assume under a servile regime. The single merit of slave labour as an industrial instrument consists, as we have seen, in its capacity for organization — its susceptibility, that is to say, of being adjusted with precision to the kind of work to be done, and of being directed on a comprehensive plan towards some distinctly conceived end. Now to give scope to this quality, the scale on which industry is carried on must be extensive, and, to carry on industry on an extensive scale, large capitals are required. Large capitalists will therefore have, in slave communities, a special and peculiar advantage over small capitalists beyond that which they enjoy in countries where labour is free. But there is another circumstance which ren ders a considerable capital still more an indispen sable condition to the successful conduct of in dustrial operations in slave countries. A capitalist who employs free labour needs for the support of EXIGENCIES OF SLAVE AGRICULTURE. 67 his labour force a sum sufficient to cover the amount of their wages during the interval which elapses from the commencement of their operations until the sale of the produce which results from them. But the capitalist employing slave labour requires not merely this sum — represented in his case by the food, clothing, and shelter provided for his slaves during the corresponding period — but, in addition to this, a sum sufficient to purchase the fee-simple of his entire slave force. For the conduct of a given business, therefore, it is obvious that the em ployer of slave labour will require a much larger capital than the employer of free labour. The ca pital of the one will represent merely the current outlay ; while the capital of the other will repre sent, in addition to this, the future capabilities of the productive instrument. The one will represent the interest, the other the principal and interest, of the labour employed.* Owing to these causes * The operation of the economic principle which I have endea voured to explain is well illustrated in the following case put by Mr. Olmsted : — " Let us suppose two recent immigrants, one in Texas, the other in the young free State of Iowa, to have both, at the same time, a considerable sum of money — say five thousand dollars — at disposal. Land has been previously purchased, a hasty dwelling of logs con structed, and ample crops for sustenance harvested. Each has found communication with his market interrupted during a portion of the year by floods ; each needs an ampler and better house ; each de sires to engage a larger part of his land in profitable production ; 5* 68 RESULTS : MAGNITUDE OF PLANTATIONS. large capitals are, relatively to small, more pro fitable, and are, at the same time, absolutely more required in countries of slave, than in countries of free, labour. It happens, however, that capital is in slave countries a particularly scarce commodity, owing partly to the exclusion from such countries of many modes of creating it — manufactures and each needs some agricultural machinery or implements ; in the neighbourhood of each, a church, a school, a grist-mill, and a branch railroad are proposed. Each may be supposed to have previously obtained the necessary materials for his desired constructions ; and to need immediately the services of a carpenter. The Texan, un able to hire one in the neighbourhood, orders his agent in Houston or New Orleans to buy him one : when he arrives, he has cost not less than two of the five thousand dollars. The lowan, in the same predicament, writes to a friend in the East or advertises in the news papers, that he is ready to pay better wages than carpenters can get in the older settlements ; and a young man, whose only capital is in his hands and his wits, glad to come where there is a glut of food and a dearth of labour, soon presents himself. To construct a cause way and a bridge, and to clear, fence, and break up the land he de sires to bring into cultivation, the Texan will need three more slaves — and he gets them as before, thereby investing all his money. The lowan has only to let his demand be known, or, at most, to ad vance a small sum to the public conveyances, and all the labourers he requires — independent small capitalists of labour — gladly bring their only commodity to him and offer it as a loan, on his promise to pay a better interest, or wages, for it than Eastern capitalists are willing to do. The lowan next sends for the implements and ma chinery which will enable him to make the best use of the labour he has engaged. The Texan tries to get on another year without them, or employs such rude substitutes as his stupid, uninstructed, and uninterested slaves can readily make in his ill-furnished plantation INDEBTEDNESS OF PLANTERS. 69 commerce for example — which are open to free communities, and partly to what is also a conse quence of the institution — the unthrifty habits of the upper classes. We arrive therefore at this sin- gular conclusion, that, while large capitals in coun tries of slave labour enjoy peculiar advantages, and while the aggregate capital needed in them for the work-shop. The lowan is able to contribute liberally to aid in the construction of the church, the school-house, the mill, and the rail road. His labourers, appreciating the value of the reputation they may acquire for honesty, good judgment, skill, and industry, do not need constant superintendence, and he is able to call on his neigh bours and advise, encourage, and stimulate them. Thus the church, the school, and the railroad are soon in operation, and with them is brought rapidly into play other social machinery, which makes much luxury common and cheap to all. The Texan, if solicited to assist in similar enterprises, answers truly, that cotton is yet too low to permit him to invest money where it does not promise to be imme diately and directly productive. The lowan may still have one or two thousand dollars, to be lent to merchants, mechanics, or manu facturers, who are disposed to establish themselves near him. With the aid of this capital, not only various minor conveniences are brought into the neighbourhood, but useful information, scientific, agricultural, and political ; and commodities, the use of which is educative of taste and the finer capacities of our nature, are attrac tively presented to the people. The Texan mainly does without these things. He confines the imports of his plantation almost en tirely to slaves, corn, bacon, salt, sugar, molasses, tobacco, clothing, medicine, hoes, and plough-iron. Even if he had the same capital to spare, he would live in far less comfort than the lowan, because of the want of local shops and efficient systems of public conveyance which cheapen the essentials of comfort for the latter." — Texas, pp. viii.-x. 70 UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. conduct of a given amount of industry is greater than in countries where labour is free, capital never theless in such countries is exceptionally scarce. From this state of things result two phenomena which may be regarded as typical of industry carried on by slaves — the magnitude of the plantations and the indebtedness of the planters. Wherever negro slavery has prevailed in modern times, these two phenomena will be found to exist. They form the burthen of most of what has been written on our West Indian Islands while under the regime of slavery ; and they are not less prominently the cha racteristic features of the industrial system of the Southern States. " Our wealthier planters," says Mr. Clay, " are buying out their poorer neighbours, ex tending their plantations, and adding to their slave force. The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits, and to give their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many who are merely independent." At the same time these wealthier planters are, it is well known, very generally in debt, the forthcoming crops being for the most part mortgaged to Northern capitalists, who make the needful advances, and who thus become the instru ments by which a considerable proportion of the slave labour of the South is maintained. The ten dency of things, therefore, in slave countries is to a very unequal distribution of wealth. The large WASTE LANDS IN SLAVE COUNTRIES. 71 capitalists, having a steady advantage over their smaller competitors, engross, with the progress of time, a larger and larger proportion of the aggre gate wealth of the country, and gradually acquire the control of its collective industry. Meantime, amongst the ascendant class a condition of general indebtedness prevails. But we may carry our deductions from the economic character of slavery somewhat further. It has been seen that slave cultivation can only maintain itself where the soil is rich, while it pro duces a steady deterioration of the soils on which it is employed. This being so, it is evident that in countries of average fertility but a small portion of the whole area will be available for this mode of cultivation, and that this portion is ever becoming smaller, since, as the process of deterioration pro ceeds, more soils are constantly reaching that con dition in which servile labour ceases to be profit able. What, then, is to become of the remainder — that large portion of the country which is either na turally too poor for cultivation by slaves, or which has been made so by its continued employment ? It will be thought, perhaps, that this may be worked by free labour, and that by a judicious combination of both forms of industry the whole surface of the country may be brought to the highest point of productiveness. But this is a moral impossibility : 72 WASTE LANDS IN SLAVE COUNTRIES. it is precluded by what, we shall find, is a car dinal feature in the structure of slave societies — their exclusiveness. In free countries industry is the path to independence, to wealth, to social dis tinction, and is therefore held in honour ; in slave countries it is the vocation of the slave, and becomes therefore a badge of degradation. The free labourer, consequently, who respects his calling and desires to be respected, instinctively shuns a country where industry is discredited, where he cannot engage in those pursuits by which wealth and independence are to be gained without placing himself on a level with the lowest of mankind. Free and slave labour are, therefore, incapable of being blended together in the same system. Where slavery exists it ex cludes all other forms of industrial life. " The tra veller," says De Tocqueville, " who floats down the current of the Ohio, may be said to sail between liberty and servitude. Upon the left bank of the stream the population is sparse ; from time to time one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half- desert fields ; the primaeval forest recurs at every turn ; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, and nature alone offers a scene of activity and of life. From the right bank, on the contrary, a con fused hum is heard which proclaims the presence of industry ; the fields are covered with abundant harvests ; the elegance of the dwellings announces WASTE LANDS IN SLAVE COUNTRIES. 73 the taste and activity of the labourer ; and man ap pears to be in the enjoyment of that wealth and contentment which is the reward of labour. Upon the left bank of the Ohio labour is confounded with the idea of slavery, upon the right bank it is identi fied with that of prosperity and improvement ; on the one side it is degraded, on the other it is honoured ; on the former territory no white labour ers can be found, for they would be afraid of assimi lating themselves to the negroes ; on the latter no one is idle, for the white population extends its activity and its intelligence to every kind of employ ment. Thus the men whose task it is to cultivate the rich soil of Kentucky are ignorant and luke warm ; whilst those who are enlightened either do nothing, or pass over into the State of Ohio, where they may work without dishonour."* * Democracy in America, vol. ii. pp. 222, 223. "The negroes," says Mr. Olmsted, (i are a degraded people — degraded not merely by position, but actually immoral, low-lived ; without healthy am bition ; but little influenced by high moral considerations ; and, in regard to labour, not at all affected by regard for duty. This is universally recognized, and debasing fear, not cheering hope, is in general allowed to be their only stimulant to exertion. . . Now, let the white labourer come here from the North or from Europe — his nature demands a social life— shall he associate with the poor, slavish, degraded, low-lived, despised, unambitious negro, with whom labour and punishment are almost synonymous ? or shall he be the friend and companion of the white man, in whose mind labour is habitually associated with no ideas of duty, responsibility, 74 SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES. Agriculture, therefore, when carried on by slaves, being by a sure law restricted to the most fertile portions of the land, and no other form of sys tematic industry being possible where slavery is established, it happens that there are in all slave countries vast districts, becoming, under the deterio rating effects of slave industry, constantly larger, which are wholly surrendered to nature, and re main for ever as wilderness. This is a charac teristic feature in the political economy of the Slave States of the South, and is attended with comfort, luxury, cultivation, or elevation and expansion either of mind or estate, as it is where the ordinary labourer is a free man — free to use his labour as a means of obtaining all these and all else that is to be respected, honoured, or envied in the world 1 As sociating with either or both, is it not inevitable that he will be rapidly demoralized — that he will soon learn to hate labour, give as little of it for his hire as he can, become base, cowardly, faithless — ' worse than a nigger' 1 . . . When we reflect how little the great body of our working men are consciously much affected by moral considerations in their movements, one is tempted to suspect that the Almighty has endowed the great transatlantic migration with a new instinct, by which it is unconsciously repelled from the demoralizing and debilitating influence of slavery, as migrating birds have sometimes been thought to be from pestilential regions. I know not else how to account for the remarkable indisposition to be sent to Virginia which I have seen manifested by poor Irishmen and Germans, who could have known, I think, no more of the evils of slavery to the whites in the Slave States, than the slaves them selves know of the effect of conscription in France, and who cer tainly could have been governed by no considerations of self- respect." THE ' MEAN WHITES.' 75 social consequences of the most important kind. For the tracts thus left, or made, desolate become in time the resort of a numerous horde of people, who, too poor to keep slaves and too proud to work, pre fer a vagrant and precarious life spent in the desert to engaging in occupations which would associate them with the slaves whom they despise. In the Southern States no less than five millions of human beings are now said to exist in this manner in a con dition little removed from savage life, eking out a wretched subsistence by hunting, by fishing, by hiring themselves out for occasional jobs, by plun der. Combining the restlessness and contempt for regular industry peculiar to the savage with the vices of the proletaire of civilized communities, these people make up a class at once degraded and danger ous, and, constantly reinforced as they are by all that is idle, worthless, and lawless among the population of the neighbouring states, form an inexhaustible pre serve of ruffianism, ready at hand for all the worst purposes of Southern ambition. The planters com plain of these people for their idleness, for corrupting their slaves, for their thievish propensities ; but they cannot dispense with them ; for, in truth, they per form an indispensable function in the economy of slave societies, of which they are at once the victims and the principal supports. It is from their ranks that those filibustering expeditions are recruited 76 THE l MEAN WHITES.' which have been found so effective an instrument in extending the domain of the Slave Power ; they fur nish the Border Ruffians who in the colonization strug gle with the Northern States contend with Freesoilers on the Territories ; and it is to their antipathy to the negroes that the planters securely trust for repres- sing every attempt at servile insurrection. Such are the " mean whites" or " white trash" of the Southern States. They comprise several local subdivisions, the " crackers," the " sandhillers," the " clay-eaters," and many more. The class is not peculiar to any one locality, but is the invariable outgrowth of negro slavery wherever it has raised its head in modern times. It may be seen in the new state of Texas* as well as in the old settled districts of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia; in the West India Islands f no less than on the Continent. In the states of the Confederacy it comprises, as I have said, five millions of human beings — about seven-tenths of the whole white population. The industry of the Slave States, we have seen, is exclusively agricultural ; and the mode of agricul ture pursued in them has been represented as partial, perfunctory, and exhaustive. It must, however, be admitted that, to a certain extent, this description is applicable to the industrial condition of all new * Olms ted' s Texas, p. xvii. ; note. f Merivale's Colonization and the Colonies, p. 83 ; note, new ed. FREE INDUSTRY IN NEW COUNTRIES. 77 countries, and will find illustrations in the western regions of the Free States ; and it may therefore occur to the reader that the economical condi tions which I have described are rather the conse quence of the recent settlement of the societies where they prevail than specific results of the system of slavery. But it is easy to show that this view of the case is fallacious, and proceeds from confounding what is essential in slave-industry with an accidental and temporary feature in the industrial career of free communities. The settlers in new countries, whether they be slave-holders or free peasants, naturally fix in the first instance on the richest and most conveniently situated soils, and find it more profitable to cultivate these lightly, availing themselves to the utmost of the resources which nature offers, than to force cultivation on inferior soils after the manner of high farming in old countries. So far the cases are similar. But here lies the difference. The labour of free peasants, though of course more productive on rich than on inferior soils, is not necessarily confined to the former ; whereas this is the case with the labour of slaves. According, therefore, as free peasants multiply, after the best soils have been appropri ated, the second best are taken into cultivation ; and as they multiply still more, cultivation becomes still more general, until ultimately all the cultivable 78 FREE INDUSTRY IN NEW COUNTRIES. portions of the country are brought within the domain of industry. But as slaves multiply, their masters cannot have recourse to inferior soils : they must find for them new soils : the mass of the coun try, therefore, remains uncultivated, and the popu lation increases only by dispersion. Again, al though the mode of cultivation pursued by free peasants in new lands is generally far from what would be approved of by the scientific farmers of old countries, still it does not exhaust the soil in the same manner as cultivation carried on by slaves. "I hold myself justified," says Mr. Olmsted, " in as serting that the natural elements of wealth in the soil of Texas will have been more exhausted in ten years, and with them the rewards offered by Provi dence to labour will have been more lessened, than without slavery would have been the case in two hundred." . . . " After two hundred years' occupa tion of similar soils by a free-labouring community, I have seen no such evidences of waste as in Texas I have after ten years of slavery."* ..." Waste of soil and injudicious application of labour are common in the agriculture of the North ; . . . but nowhere is the land with what is attached to it now less pro mising and suitable for the residence of a refined and civilized people than it was before the opera tions, which have been attended with the alleged * Olmsted' s Texas, p. xiv. COMPARED WITH SLAVE INDUSTRY. 79 waste, were commenced." The same is not true of Virginia or the Carolinas, or of any other district where slavery has predominated for an historic pe riod. "The land in these cases is positively less capa ble of sustaining a dense civilized community than if no labour at all had been expended upon it."* The superficial and careless mode of agriculture pur sued by free peasants in new countries is, in short, accidental and temporary, the result of the excep tional circumstances in which they are placed, and gives place to a better system as population increases and inferior soils are brought under the plough ; but the superficiality and exhaustiveness of agriculture carried on by slaves are essential and unalterable qualities, rendering all cultivation impossible but that which is carried on upon the richest soils, and irremovable by the growth of population, since they are an effectual bar to this. My position is, that in slave communities agricul ture is substantially f the sole occupation, while this single pursuit is prematurely arrested in its development, never reaching those soils of secondary * Olmsted's Texas, p. xviii. ; note. t I do not mean to assert that there is no mechanical or manu facturing industry carried on in the Slave States. In some of the principal towns, no doubt, there is, though to a limited extent, and here it is chiefly the result of Northern enterprise. What I intend to say is, that the amount of industry of this kind is so small, that in speaking of the resources of national wealth, it need not be taken account of. 80 FREE INDUSTRY IN NEW COUNTRIES quality which, under a system of free industry, would, with the growth of society, be brought under cultivation ; and of this statement the industrial history of the Free and Slave States forms one continued illustration. The state of Virginia, for example, is the longest settled state in the Union, and for general productive purposes, one of the most richly endowed. It possesses a fertile soil, a genial climate ; it is rich in mineral productions, in iron, in copper, in coal — the coal fields of Virginia being amongst the most extensive in the world, and the coal of superior quality ; it is approached by one of the noblest bays ; it is watered by numerous rivers, some of them na vigable for considerable distances, and most of them capable of affording abundance of water power for manufacturing purposes.* With such advantages, Virginia, a region as large as England, could not fail, in a career of two hundred and fifty years, under a system of free industry, to become a state of great wealth, population, and power. Her mineral and manufacturing, as well as her agricul tural, resources would be brought into requisition ; her population would increase with rapidity, and become concentrated in large towns ; her agricul ture would be extended over the whole surface of the country. But what is the result of the * Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, pp. 165, 166. COMPARED WITH SLAVE INDUSTRY. 8 1 experiment under a slave regime ? After a na tional life of two hundred and fifty years the whole free population is still under one million souls.* Eight-tenths of her industry are devoted to agriculture ; and the progress which has been made in this, the principal pursuit, may be esti mated by the significant fact, that the average price per acre of cultivated land in Virginia is no more than eight dollars. Contrast this with the progress made in fifty years by the free state of Ohio — a state smaller in area than Virginia, and inferior in variety of resources. Ohio was admitted as a state into the Union in 1802, and in 1850 its population numbered nearly two millions. f Like Virginia it is chiefly agricultural, though not from the same causes, Ohio being from its resources and internal position adapted in a peculiar manner to agricul ture, while the resources of Virginia would fit it equally for manufactures or commerce ; but, while the average price of cultivated land per acre in Virginia, after an agricultural career of two hun dred and fifty years, is eight dollars, the average price in Ohio, after a career of fifty years, is * The actual numbers were in 1850 : — Whites 894,800 Free coloured ... 54,333 Total free ... 949,133 The actual numbers were, 1,980,329. 82 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVE STATES twenty dollars. The contrast will of course only become more striking, if, instead of a free state of fifty years' growth, we take one more nearly on a par in the duration of its career with the slave state with which it is compared. New Jersey, for example, was founded about the same time as Virginia. Its climate, Mr. Olmsted tells us, differs imperceptibly from that of Virginia, owing to its vicinity to the ocean, while its soil is decidedly less fertile ; but such progress has been made in bringing that soil under cultivation that, against eight dollars per acre — the average price of land in Virginia — there is to be set in New Jersey an average of forty-four dollars.* Let us take another example. New York and Massachusetts are also, in relation * Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, p. 171. In connexion with this question Mr. Weston (Progress of Slavery) gives the following striking statistics, p. 17 : — " The following were the prices per acre in the states and counties named, and the per centage of slaves in Kentucky and the counties named : — Value Per cent. per acre, of slaves. Ohio $i9'99 Indiana T0'66 Illinois 7'99 Kentucky 9*°3 22 Ohio counties adjoining Kentucky ... 32'34 Kentucky counties adjoining Ohio ... 18-27 I0 Indiana counties adjoining Kentucky ... u'34 Kentucky counties adjoining Indiana ... io'44 2I Illinois counties adjacent to Kentucky ... . 4*65 Kentucky counties adjacent to Illinois ... 4-54 18 " PREMATURELY ARRESTED. 83 to Virginia, contemporary states. In agricultural resources they are greatly its inferiors, the soil of Massachusetts in particular being sterile and its climate harsh. What then has been the relative progress made by these three states in bringing their respective soils under cultivation ? In Vir ginia, 26| per cent, of her whole area had, in 1852, been brought under tillage ; in New York, 41 per cent. ; and in Massachusetts, 42^ per cent. But these facts do not convey their full lesson till we add that, in bringing 26^ per cent, of her soil under cultivation, Virginia employed eight-tenths of her industrial population, while New York and Massachusetts, in bringing under cultivation much larger proportions of their areas, employed but six and four-tenths of their respective populations.* It thus appears that Virginia, with great agricultural resources and a population almost wholly devoted to agriculture, has been far outstripped in her own peculiar branch of industry by states of inferior resources, and whose industry has been largely or principally devoted to other pursuits. The same * These facts are given in an " Address to the Farmers of Vir ginia," by the Virginia State Agricultural Society, which, after having been twice read, approved, and adopted, was finally rejected on the ground that " there were admissions in it which would feed the fanaticism of the abolitionists ;" but " no one argued against it on the ground of the falsity or inaccuracy of its returns." It is quoted at length by Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, pp., 167-170. 84 NET RESULTS OF SLAVE INDUSTRY. comparison might be continued throughout the other Free and Slave states with analogous results. The general truth is, that in the Free States, where external circumstances are favourable, in dustry is distributed over many occupations — manu factures, mining, commerce, agriculture ; while in the Slave States, however various be the resources of the country, it is substantially confined to one — agriculture, and in this one is prematurely arrested, never reaching that stage of development which in countries where labour is free is early attained. The reader is now in a position to understand the kind of economic success which slavery has achieved. It consists in the rapid extraction from the soil of a country of the most easily obtained portion of its wealth by a process which exhausts the soil, and consigns to waste all the other resources of the country where it is practised. To state the case with more particularity — by proscribing manufac tures and commerce, and confining agriculture within narrow bounds, by rendering impossible the rise of a free peasantry, by checking the growth of popu lation — in a word, by blasting every germ from which national well-being and general civilization may spring — at this cost, with the further condi tion of encroaching, through a reckless system of culture, on the stores designed by Providence for future generations, slavery may undoubtedly for a CONSTITUTION OF SLAVE SOCIETY. 85 time be made conducive to the pecuniary gain of the class who keep slaves. Such is the net result of advantage which slavery, as an economic system, is capable of yielding. To the full credit of all that is involved in this admission the institution is fairly entitled. The constitution of a slave society, it has been seen, is sufficiently simple : it resolves itself into three classes, broadly distinguished from each other, and connected by no common interest — the slaves on whom devolves all the regular industry, the slave holders who reap all its fruits, and an idle and lawless rabble who live dispersed over vast plains in a condition little removed from absolute barbar ism. These form the constituent elements of the society of which the Slave Power is the political representative. What the nature of that power is, now that we have ascertained the elements out of which it springs, we can have little difficulty in determining. When the whole wealth of a country is monopolized by a thirtieth part of its population, while the remainder are by physical or moral causes consigned to compulsory poverty and ignorance ; when the persons co .nposing the privileged thirtieth part are all engaged in pursuits of the same kind, subject to the influence of the same moral ideas, and identified with the maintenance of the same species of property — in a society so constituted, 86 CONSTITUTION OF SLAVE SOCIETY political power will of necessity reside with those in whom centre the elements of such power — wealth, knowledge, and intelligence — the small minority for whose exclusive benefit the system exists. The polity of such a society must thus, in essence, be an oligarchy, whatever be the particular mould in which it is cast. Nor is this all. A society so organized tends to develop with a peculiar intensity the distinctive vices of an oligarchy. In a country of free labour, whatever be the form of government to which it is subject, the pursuits of industry are various. Various interests, therefore, take root, and parties grow up which, regarding national questions from various points of view, become centres of oppo sition, whether against the undue pretensions of any one of their number, or against those of a single ruler. It is not so in the Slave States. That variety of interests which springs from the individual im pulses of a free population does not here exist. The elements of a political opposition are wanting. There is but one party,* but one set of men who are * There is one exception to this statement. Between the breed ing and working states a difference of interest has been developed which has resulted in the formation of tvo parties within the Slave States. But (as will hereafter be shewn) this difference of interest has never been sufficient to produce any serious discordance among the politicians of the South. The syrnpatiiies which bind the breeding and working states together are far stronger than any interests which separate them ; and in the main they have always acted as a single party. ESSENTIALLY OLIGARCHICAL. 87 capable of acting together in political concert. The rest is an undisciplined rabble. From this state of things the only possible result is that which we find — a despotism, in the last degree unscrupulous and impatient of control, wielded by the wealthy few. Now it is this power which for half a century has exercised paramount sway in the councils of the Union. It is the men educated in the ideas of this system who have filled the highest offices of State, who have been the representatives of their country to European Powers, and who, by their position and the influence they have commanded, have given the tone to the public morality of the nation. The de terioration of the institutions and of the character of the people of the United States is now very com monly taken for granted in this country. The fact may be so ; so far as the South is concerned I be lieve, and shall endeavour to prove, that it unques tionably is so. But it is very important that we should understand to what cause this deterioration is due. There are writers who would have us be lieve that it is but the natural result of democratic institutions working through the Federal system ; and for this view a plausible case may be easily made out. Democratic institutions have admittedly exercised a powerful influence in forming the Ame rican character and in determining the present condi tion of the United States. It is only necessary, 88 BANEFUL INFLUENCE OF SLAVE OLIGARCHY therefore, to bring this point strongly into view in close connexion with all that is most objectionable in the public morals, and all that is most discredi table in the recent history, of the Union, keeping carefully out of sight the existence in the political system of institutions the reverse of democratic, and avoiding all reference to the cardinal fact, that it is these and not the democratic institutions of the North which, almost since its establishment, have been the paramount power in the Union, — to leave the impression that everything that has been made matter of reproach in transatlantic politics has been due to democracy and to democracy alone. According to this method of theorising, the abstrac tion of Florida, the annexation of Texas, the filibus tering expeditions of Lopez and Walker, the attempts upon Cuba, have no connexion with the aggressive ambition of the Slave Power : they are only proofs of the rapacious spirit of democracy armed with the strength of a powerful federation. It is, indeed, quite astounding to observe the boldness with which this argument is sometimes handled. One would have thought that an advocate of the Southern cause would at least have shown some hesitancy in alluding to an attack made by a Southern bully, on the floor of the Senate house, upon one of the most accomplished statesmen of the North. That attack was in all circumstances plainly branded with the FALSELY CHARGED ON DEMOCRACY. 89 marks of its origin. It was committed by a slave holder, acting as the champion of slaveholders, in revenge for an anti-slavery speech; it was charac terized by that mingled treachery, cowardice, and brutality which are only to be found in societies reared in the presence of slavery; it was adopted and applauded by the whole people of the South, recognized by testimonials, and rewarded by gifts: yet this act is deliberately put forward as an exam ple of the " irreverence for justice " which is pro duced by democratic institutions, and is employed to prepossess our minds in favour of the Southern cause !* The present writer is far from being an * Spence's American Union, pp. 65-6, 74-5. Mr. Spence states the act, omitting to mention the occasion, or whether the actors were Northern or Southern men ; but in the same paragraph, having al luded to the case of Mr. Sickles, he adds that the man " who com mitted a deliberate and relentless murder in open day .... is now a Brigadier- General in the Northern army." Is the mention of the criminal's origin in one case, and its suppression in the other, an accident 1 In a later portion of the volume a still more striking instance occurs of Mr. Spence's candour. "A French writer, Eaymond, comments upon the singular fact that whilst between England and France but one serious quarrel has occurred since 1815, there have arisen during the same period twelve or thirteen most serious diffi culties between the United States and ourselves. . . . We have had minor wars with China, conducted on the principle of throwing open to the world every advantage obtained by ourselves. On one occasion we invited the co-operation of the American Go vernment, but in vain, and every opportunity was seized to thwart 90 EACH PRINCIPLE TO BE TESTED admirer of democracy as it exists in the Northern States; but, whatever be the merits or demerits of that form of government, it is desirable that it our policy. Even the Chinese know they may expect to see the flag of any other power in union with our own, but never that of America. There was, indeed, a moment when our men were falling under a murderous fire, that for once an American was heard to de clare that ' blood was thicker than water.' It would ill become us to forget the noble conduct of Commodore Tatnall on that occasion. He was a Southerner, and is now a 'traitor and a rebel'" (pp. 294-296). Let the reader note the art with which the facts are here manipulated. We are asked to refuse our sympathies to the North, because, since 1815 we have had frequent difficulties with the United States (which the North now represents) — the circumstance that during al most the whole of this period the Government of the United States was in the hands of Southern statesmen being suppressed as of no importance in the case. On the other hand, a single instance in which a Southerner has performed an act of a friendly nature towards Great Britain is brought prominently forward as a ground for giving our sympathies to the South. It is evident that the contrast thus instituted between the friendly conduct of Commodore Tatnall — a Southerner — and the hostile spirit which had just been commented on as manifested by the Government of the Union, can, taken in connexion with the general tenor of the argument, have no other effect than to leave readers unacquainted with the facts (a rather numerous class unfortunately in this country) under the impression that, as the friendly demonstration was the act of a Southerner, so the hostile manifestations proceeded from the North. The spirit evinced in this passage, which is merely a specimen of the main ar gument of the work from which it is taken, is all the more remark able in a writer who in his preface bespeaks the confidence of his readers on the ground that " personal considerations and valued friendships incline him without exception to the Northern side," which he has been compelled reluctantly to abandon by " convic tions forced upon the mind by facts and reasonings." BY ITS PROPER FRUITS. 9 1 should be judged by its own fruits, and not by the fruits of a system which is its opposite — a system which, in place of conferring political power on the majority of the people, gives it, free from all con trol, to a small minority whose interests are not only not identical with those of their fellow-citizens, but are directly opposed to theirs. Democracy, beyond all doubt, has been a powerful influence in moulding the character of the Americans in the Northern States ; it would be absurd to deny this ; but it would be no less absurd, and would be still more flagrantly in defiance of the most conspicuous facts of the case, to deny that that character has also been profoundly modified by the influence of Southern institutions, acting through the Federal government, in the persons of Southern men — insti tutions which I repeat are the reverse of democratic. It is the Slave Power, and not the democracy of the North, which for half a century has been dominant in the Union. It is this Power which has directed its public policy ; which has guided its intercourse with foreign nations, conducted its diplomacy, regu lated its internal legislation, and which, by working on its hopes and fears through the unscrupulous use of an enormous patronage, has exercised an un bounded sway over the minds of the whole people. Whatever other agencies may have contributed to shape the course of American politics, this at least 92 CHARACTER OF THE SLAVE POWER. has been a leading one ; and whatever be the politi cal character of the citizens, for that character this system must be held in a principal degree respon sible. To sum up in a few words the general results of the foregoing discussion : — the Slave Power — that power which has long held the helm of government in the Union — is, under the forms of a democracy, an uncontrolled despotism, wielded by a compact oligarchy. Supported by the labour of four mil- lions of slaves, it rules a population of five millions of whites — a population ignorant, averse to syste matic industry, and prone to irregular adventure. A system of society more formidable for evil, more menacing to the best interests of the human race, it is difficult to conceive. 93 CHAPTER IV. TENDENCIES OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. IN what direction is slave society, as presented in the States of the Confederation, moving ? Towards a higher civilization, or towards barbarism ? On the answer to this question, I apprehend, will prin cipally depend the degree of indulgence which we may be disposed to extend to modern slavery. If the form of society springing from the institution be found to be but an incident of a certain stage of human progress, a shell of barbarism from which nations gradually work themselves free with the development of their moral and material life, an evil which will disappear by a spontaneous process — we shall probably be disposed to regard the institution with considerable leniency, to deprecate schemes for its overthrow, and, perhaps, in certain cases, even to look with favour on plans for its extension. If, on the other hand, it appear that the system is essentially retrograde in its character, contrived so as to arrest and throw back the development, moral and material, of the people on whom it is imposed, and to hold them in a condition of per manent barbarism, the sentiments with which we 94 IN WHAT DIRECTION MOVING? shall regard it, as well as our policy towards the countries which uphold it, will be of a very different kind. Thus, to give the point a practical illustration, the mode of dealing with Mexico is at present a most perplexing question for European statesmen. In the present condition of that country — the prey of contending factions, whose alternate excesses pre vent the growth of steady industry, deter European settlement, and deprive the world of the benefit which its great natural resources are calculated to confer — almost any change would be a change for the better. The establishment of an effective go- vernment of some kind, of a power capable of pre serving the lives and properties of the inhabitants, is a matter of prime necessity, without which the first foundations of improvement cannot be laid. Now the most obvious method of effecting this pur pose would be to hand the country over to the Southern Confederation ;* and this arrangement would entirely fall in with the views of the leaders of that body. But Mexico, whatever be the vices of its political system, is a state in which labour is free ; whereas, if annexed to the dominions of the Southern Confederation, it would at once be- * This is not a mere fanciful hypothesis. The plan has been suggested in terms sufficiently unambiguous by the Times. See a leading article of the Times, 3ist July, 1861. IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION. 95 come the abode of slavery. Nevertheless it can scarcely be doubted that this annexation would, in the first instance, be attended with some advantages. For the chieftains whose combined weakness and violence now keep the country in constant agitation there would be substituted a strong government — a government incompatible, indeed, with freedom of speech or writing, or with security of life or pro- perty for such as ventured to dissent from its prin ciples, but still able to preserve order after a certain fashion — able to protect slaveholders in the enjoy ment of their property, and to prevent revolutions. Cinder such a government productive industry might be expected to start forward with vigour ; those products which are capable of being raised with profit by slave labour, and amongst these cotton, would be multiplied and cheapened in the markets of the world ; the position of Mexican bondholders would be improved. Such would probably be the immediate effect of the annexation. But what would be its permanent consequences ? To answer this question we must resolve the problem with which we started. We must determine the direc tion in which society in the Southern States is moving. If the " peculiar institution " be essenti ally temporary and provisional in its character, if it be not incompatible with the ultimate eman cipation of those on whom it is imposed, as well g6 PRESUMPTION IN FAVOUR OF MODERN SLAVERY as with the continued progress of the people among whom it is established, then the permanent as well as immediate, consequences of the extension of Southern rule over Mexico, notwithstanding that it would be attended with the introduction of slavery into a country where labour at present is free, might perhaps be thought to be, on the whole, advantageous. But, if the institution of the South be a permanent thraldom, and if the form of society to which it gives birth be of a kind effectually to arrest the growth of the whole people among whom it is planted — under these circumstances, to hand over Mexico to the Southern Confederacy would be nothing less than, for the sake of certain material advantages to be reaped by the present generation, to seal the doom of a noble country — a country which, under better auspices, might become a per- ennial source of benefits for all future time, and a new centre of American civilization. It is therefore of extreme importance to ascer tain the tendencies of these slave societies, and what prospects they hold out of future advancement to the people who compose them. And, in approach ing this question, it at once occurs that slavery is not a new fact in the world. It prevailed, as we know, among all the nations of antiquity, of whom, nevertheless, some displayed great aptitude for intel lectual cultivation, and attained a high degree of DERIVED FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF ANCIENT. 97 general civilization. It formed, at one time, an in gredient in the social system of all modern states, which, however, did not find it incompatible with a progressive career, and the last traces of slavery, in the mitigated form of serfdom, are but now disap pearing from Europe. If slavery was not inconsist ent with progressive civilization among the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews — if mediaeval Europe contrived to work itself free from this vicious ele ment of its social constitution, it will perhaps be asked why need we despair of progress for the States of the Confederation. Why are we to suppose that they, under the influence of the same causes which operated in ancient and mediaeval society, should not, in the same gradual fashion, emancipate their slaves, and ultimately reach the same level of general cultivation which those societies attained ? Nay, it is possible there may be those who, while holding slavery to be, as a permanent status, nox ious, may nevertheless regard it as not incapable of performing a useful function towards people in a certain stage of their development, as a kind of probationary discipline suitable to their preparation for a higher form of civilized existence, and may consider its maintenance in the Southern States at present as defensible upon this ground. Some such notion, it seems to me, is at the bottom of much of the indulgence, and even favour, with which the 98 THE ANALOGY FAILS IN THREE POINTS. cause of the South has come to be regarded in this country ;* and it is, therefore, worth while to con sider how far this view of modern slavery is well- founded. And here it may be advantageous to bear in mind the caution of De Tocqueville. " When I compare the Greek and Roman republics with these American States ; when I remember all the attempts which are made to judge the modern republics by the assist ance of those of antiquity, and to infer what will happen in our time from what took place two thousand years ago, I am tempted to burn my books, in order to apply none but novel ideas to so novel a condition of society." The truth is, be tween slavery, as it existed in classical and mediaeval times and the system which now erects itself defi antly in North America, there exist the most deep reaching distinctions. I will mention three, which, as it seems to me, are in themselves sufficient to * " Slavery," says a writer in the Saturday Review, " appears to die away, or at least its most horrible incidents disappear in pro portion as the community in which it exists becomes older, more wealthy, and therefore more dense. . . . The best chance for the alleviation of the slave's condition lies in the increased wealth and prosperity of the South. In other words, its freedom to deve lop its own resources, without foreign intervention, is the slave's best hope. And it is agreed on all hands that a modified and alle viated slavery is a transitional state in which it is very difficult for the slaveowners to halt long." — Nov. 2nd, 1861. DIFFERENCE OF RACE AND COLOUR. 99 take the case of modern slavery entirely out of the scope of the analogies furnished by the former expe rience of mankind. In the first place, there is the vital fact — the differ- ence in race and colour between modern slaves and their masters — a difference which had nothing cor responding to it in the slavery of former times. The consequences flowing from this fact cannot be better stated than in the language of De Tocqueville. "The slave, amongst the ancients, belonged to the same race as his master, and he was often the superior of the two in education and instruction. Freedom was the only distinction between them ; and when freedom was conferred, they were easily confounded together." " The greatest difficulty of antiquity [in the way of abolition] was that of alter ing the law ; amongst the moderns it is that of alter ing the manners ; and, as far as we are concerned, the real obstacles begin where those of the ancients left off. This arises from the circumstance that, amongst the moderns, the abstract and transient fact of slavery is fatally united to the physical and permanent fact of colour. The tradition of slavery dishonours the race, and the peculiarity of the race perpetuates the tradition of slavery. No African has ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the New World ; whence it must be inferred, that all the blacks who are now to be found in that hemi- 7* 100 ITS EFFECTS. sphere are either slaves or freedmen. Thus the negro transmits the external mark of his ignominy to all his descendants. The law may cancel servi tude, God alone can obliterate its brand. " The modern slave differs from his master not only in his condition, but in his origin. You may set the negro free, but you cannot make him other wise than an alien to the European. Nor is this all : we scarcely acknowledge the common features of mankind in this child of debasement whom slavery has brought amongst us. His physiognomy is to our eyes hideous, his understanding weak, his tastes low ; and we are almost inclined to look upon him as a being intermediate between man and the brutes. The moderns, then, after they have abolished slavery, have three prejudices to contend against, which are less easy to attack, and far less easy to conquer, than the mere fact of servitude : the prejudice of the mas- ter, the prejudice of race, and the prejudice of colour."* But, secondly, the immense development of inter national commerce in modern times furnishes an other distinction between ancient and modern sla very, which very intimately affects the question we are discussing. So long as each nation was in the main dependent on the industry of its own members for the supply * Democracy in America, vol. ii. pp. 215-217. GROWTH OF MODERN "'OOlMKe. °- , ' !' ', r '-T 6 1 - of its wants, it is obvious that a strong motive would be present for the cultivation of the intelli gence, and the improvement of the condition, of the industrial classes. The commodities which minister to comfort and luxury cannot be produced without skilled labour, and skilled labour implies a certain degree of mental cultivation, and a certain progress in social respect. To attain success in the more difficult industrial arts, the workman must respect his vocation, must take an interest in his task ; habits of care, deliberation, forethought must be acquired ; in short, there must be such a general awakening of the faculties, intellectual and moral, as, by leading men to a knowledge of their rights and of the means of enforcing them, inevitably disqualifies them for the servile condition. Now, this was the position in which the slave master found himself in the ancient world. He was, in the main, dependent on the skill of his slaves for ob taining whatever he required. He was, therefore, naturally led to cultivate the faculties of his slaves, and by consequence to promote generally the im provement of their condition. His progress in the enjoyment of the material advantages of civilization depended directly upon their progress in knowledge and social consideration. Accordingly the education of slaves was never prohibited in the ancient Roman world, and, in point of fact, no small number of 103. .,iV*\*TS EFFECTS them enjoyed the advantage of a high cultivation. " The youths of promising genius," says Gibbon, " were instructed in the arts and sciences, and almost every profession, liberal and mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent sena tor." The industrial necessities of Roman society (and the same was true of society in the middle ages) in this way provided for the education of at least a large proportion of the slave population ; and education, accompanied as it was by a general elevation of their condition, led, by a natural and almost inevitable tendency, to emancipation.* But in the position of slavery in North America there is nothing which corresponds to this. Owing to the vast development in modern times of interna- * " The only fair analogy/' says Mr. Congreve, " to the slavery of Greece and Eome is to be found in that which is still prevalent in Asia, where the evils of West Indian or American slavery are Avholly unknown, and the relation of master and slave is accepted by both, as being, in Aristotle's words, at once light and for "the common interest." On the other hand, "if we seek for^wrallfflBg7 in ancient times to modern slavery," we may find one in "the latifundia of the Eonian nobles, or what may be termed the corn plantations of Sicily. The population there was slave, and there was no check to the misuse of their power by the agents or masters who superintended them. And there was no intercourse, no sense of connexion to soften the inherent hardships of their condition. They revolted once and again, and there was danger lest their revolt should spread, lest throughout the Roman world the slave population should feel that it had a common cause." — Congreve's Politics of Aristotle, p. 496. IN AUGMENTING THE RESOURCES OF SLAVERY. 103 tional trade, modern slaveholders are rendered inde pendent of the skill, and therefore of the intelligence and social improvement, of their slave population. They have only need to find a commodity which is capable of being produced by crude labour, and at the same time in large demand in the markets of the world ; and by applying their slaves to the produc tion of this, they may, through an exchange with other countries, make it the means of procuring for themselves whatever they require. Cotton and sugar, for example, are commodities which fulfil these condi tions : they may be raised by crude labour, and they are in lar*e demand throughout the world. Accord ingly Alabama and Louisiana have only to employ their slaves in raising these products, and they are enabled through their means to command the in dustrial resources of all commercial nations. With out cultivating one of the arts or refinements of civilization, they can possess themselves of all its material comforts. Without employing an artizan, a manufacturer, a skilled labourer of any sort, they can secure the products of the highest manufac turing and mechanical skill. " In one way or other," says Mr. Helper,* putting the point strik ingly, though from the protectionist point of view, "we are more or less subservient to the North every day of our lives. In infancy we are swad- * Impending Crisis, p. 27. 104 ENHANCED VALUE OF CRUDE LABOUR died in Northern muslin ; in childhood we are humoured with Northern gew-gaws ; in youth we are instructed out of Northern books ; at the age of maturity we sow our 'wild oats' on Northern soil ; ... in the decline of life we remedy our eye-sight with Northern spectacles, and support our infirmities with Northern canes ; in old age we are drugged with Northern physic ; and, finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern cambric, are stretched upon the bier, borne to the grave in a Northern carriage, entombed with a Northern spade, and memorized with a Northern slab !" Yet all these products of manufacturing and mechanical skill, the States which consume them are able to command through the medium of a commodity which is raised by the crudest ser vile labour. The resources of slavery have in this way been indefinitely increased in modern times. Its capabilities have been multiplied, and, without submitting to the slightest alleviation of its harsh est features, it can adapt itself to all the varying wants of human society. But the consequences of the increased capabilities of slavery do not end in merely negative results. Whatever inducements may exist for cultivating the intelligence of slaves, there are always very weighty reasons against conferring this boon. Accordingly, the former not coming into play in TENDS TO PERPETUATE SERVITUDE. 1 05 modern times, the latter have operated with unre stricted force. The merest rudiments of learning are now rigorously proscribed for the negroes in the Slave States of North America ; and the prohibition is enforced, both in the persons of the teachers and the taught, with penalties of extraordi nary severity.* u The only means by which the * The following are some extracts from the laws of some of the Southern States upon this subject. In South Carolina an act was passed in 1834, which provides as follows : — "If any person shall hereafter teach any slave to read or write, or shall aid in assisting any slave to read or write, or cause or procure any slave to be taught to read or write, such person, if a free white person, upon conviction thereof, shall for every such offence against this act be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, and imprisoned not more than six months ; or if a free person of colour, shall be whipped not exceeding fifty lashes, and fined not exceeding fifty dollars ; and if a slave, shall be whipped, not exceeding fifty lashes ; and if any free person of colour or a .slave shall keep any such school or other place of instruction for teaching any slave or free person of colour to read or write, such person shall be liable to the same fine, imprisonment and corporal punishment as are by this act imposed and inflicted om free persons of colour and slaves for teaching slaves to read or write." In Virginia, according to the code of 1849, " every assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in read ing or writing shall be an unlawful assembly, Any justice may issue his warrant to any officer or other person, requiring him to enter any place where such assemblage may be, and seize any negro therein ; and he or any other justice may order such negro to be punished with stripes/' " If a white person assemble with negroes for the purpose of instructing them to read or write, he shall be confined to jail not exceeding six months, and fined not exceeding one hundred dollars." In Georgia in 1829 it was enacted : — " If any slave, negro, or free person of colour, or any white person, shall 106 MODEKN SLAVERY ancients maintained slavery were fetters and death ; the Americans of the South of the Union have dis covered more intellectual securities for the duration of their power. They have employed their despot ism and their violence against the human mind. In antiquity, precautions were taken to prevent the slave from breaking his chains ; at the present day measures are adopted to deprive him even of the desire of freedom. The ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they placed no restraint upon the mind and no check upon education ; and they acted consistently with their established prin ciple, since a natural termination of slavery then existed, and one day or other the slave might be set free, and become the equal of his master. But the Americans of the South, who do not admit that the negroes can ever be commingled with themselves, teach any other slave, negro, or free person of colour to read or •write either written or printed characters, the said free person of colour or slave shall be punished by fine and whipping, or fine or whipping, at the discretion of the court ; and if a white person so offending, he, she, or they shall be punished with fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, and imprisonment in the common jail, at the discretion of the court." By the act of Assembly of Louisiana, passed in March, 1830, " all persons who shall teach or cause to be taught any slave in this state to read or write shall, on conviction thereof, &c., be imprisoned not less than one or more than twelve months." And in Alabama, " any person who shall attempt to teach any free person of colour or slave to spell, read or write, shall upon conviction, &c., be fined in a sum not less than 250 dollars nor more than 500 dollars." EXTENDS ITS DESPOTISM TO THE MIND. 107 have forbidden them to be taught to read and write under severe penalties ; and as they will not raise them to their own level, they sink them as nearly as possible to that of the brutes."* The education of slaves amongst the ancients prepared the way for emancipation. The prohibition of the education of slaves amongst the moderns has naturally suggested the policy of holding them in perpetual bondage ; and laws and manners have conspired to interpose obstacles all but insuperable in the way of manu mission. Thus the modern slave is cut off from the one great alleviation of his lot — the hope of freedom, f But there is yet another distinction between the slavery of modern times and slavery as it was known among the progressive communities of former ages, which deserves to be noticed — I mean the place which the slave trade fills in the organization of * Democracy in America, vol. ii. p. 246, 247. t " In Aristotle himself we find suggested one of the greatest alleviations of which slavery is susceptible. There ought to be held out to the slave, he says, the hope of liberty as the reward of his service. Thus, by a gradual infiltration, the slave population might pass into the free. It did so at Rome through the interme diate stage of freedom ; and the position of freed men at Rome in the later republic, and even more under the empire, was such that the prospect of reaching it must have been a great inducement to the slaves to acquiesce in their present lot ; and it would be an inducement which would have most weight with the highest class of slaves." — Congreve's Politics of Aristotle, p. 497. Io8 THE SLAVE TRADE. modern slavery. Trading in slaves was doubtless practised by the ancients, and with sufficient bar barity. But we look in vain in the records of antiquity for a traffic which in extent, in systematic character, and, above all, in the function discharged by it as the common support of countries breeding and consuming human labour, which can with jus tice be regarded as the analogue of the modern slave trade — of that organized system which has been carried on between Guinea and the coast of America, or of that between Virginia, the Guinea of the New World, and the slave-consuming States of the South and West.* This peculiar outgrowth of the institution forms a characteristic feature in modern slavery, and its consequences, in connexion with the question which we are considering, are of a very important kind. The effects of the slave-trade in aggravating a hundredfold all the evils of servitude have often been described. African slave-hunts, the horrors of the middle passage, the misery of unhappy bar barians, accustomed to the wild freedom of their native land, caught up and hurried away to a remote continent, and compelled to toil for the rest of their * M. Dureau de la Malle, in a critical examination of the loose and rhetorical statements of ancient authors and their modern critics, has dispelled much misconception respecting the extent of the ancient commerce in slaves. See his Economic Politique des Jiomains, torn, i., pp. 246-269. ITS TWOFOLD FUNCTION IN THE MODERN SYSTEM. 109 days under the whip of an alien taskmaster, have often been dwelt upon. So, also, the story of human beings, reared amid the softening influences of civil ization, who, so soon as they arrive at the maturity of their physical power, are, like so many cattle, shipped off to a distant region of tropical heat there to be worked to death — of husbands separated from their wives, children from their parents, brothers and sisters from each other — of exposure on the auction-block and transfer to new masters and strange climates — all this happening not to heathen savages, but to men and women capable of affection and friendship, and sensible to moral suffering, — this story, I say, is familiar to us all ; but my object at present is to direct attention, not so much to the barbarous inhumanity of the slave-trade, whe ther foreign or domestic, as to what has not been so often noticed — the mode in which it operates in giving increased coherence and stability to the sys tem of which it is a part. Now, it does this in two ways, by bringing the resources of salubrious coun tries to supplement the waste of human life in torrid regions ; and, secondly, by providing a new source of profit for slaveholders, which enables them to keep up the institution when, in the ab sence of this resource, it would become unprofitable and disappear. While countries depended for the supply of ser- I 10 THE SLAVE TRADE. vile labour upon the natural increase of their own slave population, there existed an obvious limit to the range of the system and to the hardships it was capable of inflicting. Where the character of the climate, or the nature of the work to be done, was such as to be seriously prejudicial to human life, slavery, if recruited from within, could only exist through great attention given to the physical re quirements of the slaves. Without this, it must have become extinct by the destruction of its victims. But, a commerce in slaves once established, these natural restraints upon the fullest development of slavery are effectually removed. The rice-grounds of Georgia or the swamps of the Mississippi may be fatally injurious to the human constitution ; but the waste of human life, which the cultivation of these districts necessitates, is not so great that it cannot be repaired from the teeming preserves of Virginia and Kentucky. Considerations of economy, moreover, which, under a natural system, afford some security for humane treatment by identifying the master's in terest with the slave's preservation, when once trading in slaves is practiced, become reasons for racking to the uttermost the toil of the slave ; for, when his place can at once be supplied from foreign preserves, the duration of his life becomes a matter of less moment than its productiveness while it lasts. It is accord ingly a maxim of slave management, in slave-import- IN RELATION TO THE CONSUMING COUNTRIES. I I I ing countries, that the most effective economy is that which takes out of the human chattel in the shortest space of time the utmost amount of exertion it is ca pable of putting forth. " It is in tropical culture, where annual profits often equal the whole capital of plantations, that negro life is most recklessly sacri ficed. It is the agriculture of the West Indies, which has been for centuries prolific of fabulous wealth, which has engulfed millions of the African race. It is in Cuba, at this day, whose revenues are reckoned by millions, and whose planters are princes, that we see, in the servile class, the coarsest fare, the most ex hausting and unremitting toil, and even the absolute destruction of a portion of its numbers every year, by the slow torture of overwork and insufficient sleep and rest. In our own country, is it in Maryland and Virginia that slaves fare the worst, or is it in the sugar regions of Louisiana and Texas, where the scale of profits suggests the calculation of using them up in a given number of years as a matter of economy ? Is it not notorious, that the States upon the Gulf of Mexico, in which forced labour is most productive to those who own it, are made use of by the northern slave States, not merely as markets in which to dispose of slaves as a matter of profit, but as a Botany Bay, furnished to their hands, to which their slaves are sent by way of punishment ?"* The * Progress of Slavery, pp. 132, 133. I I 2 THE SLAVE TKADE. slave-trade thus affords the means of extending the institution in its harshest form to countries in which, without this support, it either could not have been permanently maintained at all, or only in a very mitigated form, sustaining the waste of human life in tropical regions from the hardier or healthier populations of barbarous countries and of temperate climes.* But the benefits of commerce are reciprocal, and if slavery receives a new impulse from the slave-trade in the warm regions of the South, it acquires in creased stability in more temperate countries through the same cause. We have already seen the tendency of slave-labour to exhaust the soil, and the rapidity with which this process proceeds, reducing to the condition of wilderness districts which fifty years before wrere yet untouched by the hand of cultiva tion. Now, this would seem to promise that the reign of slavery, if ruinous, should at least be brief, and we might expect that, when the soil had been robbed of its fertility, the destroyer would retire from the region which he had rendered desolate. * In this adaptation the slaveholders trace the finger of God, The Professor of Agricultural Chemistry in the University of Georgia remarks on the " providential " proportion between the untilled lands of the South, and the " unemployed power of human muscles in Africa." — " I trace," he exclaims, " the growing demand for negro muscles, bones, and brains to the good providence of God." IN RELATION TO THE BREEDING COUNTRIES. 113 And such would be the fate of slavery, were it depending exclusively on the soil for its support ; but, when trading in human beings is once intro duced, a new source of profit is developed for the system, which renders it in a great degree independ ent of the resources of the soil. It is this, the profit developed by trading in slaves, and this alone, which has enabled slavery in the older Slave States of North America to survive the consequences of its own ravages. In Maryland and Virginia, perhaps also in the Carolinas and Georgia, free institutions would long since have taken the place of slavery, were it not that just as the crisis of the system had arrived, the domestic slave-trade opened a door of escape from a position which had become untenable. The conjuncture was peculiar, and would doubtless by Southern theologians be called providential. The progress of devastation had reached the point at which slave cultivation could no longer sustain itself. A considerable emigration of planters had actually taken place, and the deserted fields were already receiving a new race of settlers from the regions of freedom.* The long night of slavery * The progress of this movement is thus described by the Southern Planter : — " Every farm was greatly impoverished — almost every estate was seriously impaired — and some were involved in debt to nearly their value. Most of the proprietors had died, leaving families in reduced circumstances, and in some cases in great straits. No farm whether of a rich or a poor proprietor had escaped great exhaustion, 114 DIVISION OF LABOUR seemed to be passing away, and the dawn of a brighter day to have arrived, when suddenly the auspicious movement was arrested. A vast exten- and no property great dilapidation, unless because the proprietor had at first been too poor to join in the former expensive habits of his wealthier neighbours. There was nothing left to waste, but time and labour ; and these continued to be wasted in the now fruitless efforts to cultivate to profit, or to replace the fertility of soil which had been destroyed. Luxury and expense had been greatly lessened. But on that account the universal prostration was even the more apparent. Many mansions were falling into decay. Few received any but trivial and indispensable repairs. No new mansion was erected, and rarely any other farm-building of value. There was still generally prevailing idleness among proprietors ; and also an abandonment of hope, which made every one desirous to sell his land and move to the fertile and far West, and a general emigration and dispersion was only prevented by the impossibility of finding purchasers for the lands, even at half the then low estimate of market prices." The consequences are further described by Mr. Olmsted : — " Notwithstanding a constant emigration of the decayed families, and of the more enterprising of the poor, the population steadily augmented. ... If the apparent wealth of the country was not increasing, the foundation of a greater material prosperity was being laid in the increase of the number of small but intelligent proprietors, and in the constantly growing necessity to abandon tobacco, and substitute grains, or varied crops, as the staple produc tions of the country. The very circumstance that reduced the old pseudo-wealthy proprietors was favourable to this change, and to the application of intelligence to a more profitable disposal of the remaining elements of wealth in the land. While multitudes abandoned their ancestral acres in despair, or were driven from them by the recoil of their fathers' inconsiderate expenditures, they were taken possession of by ' new men/ endowed with more hopefulness and energy if not more intelligence than the old." — Seaboard Slave States, pp. 274-276. BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW STATES. 115 sion of the territory of the United States, opening new soils to Southern enterprise, exactly coincided with the prohibition of the external slave trade, and both fell in with the crisis in the older states. The result was a sudden and remarkable rise in the price of slaves. The problem of the planters' position was at once solved, and the domestic slave-trade com menced. Slavery had robbed Virginia of the best riches of her soil, but she still had a noble climate— a climate which would fit her admirably for being the breeding place of the South. A division of la bour between the old and the new states took place. In the former the soil was extensively exhausted, but the climate was salubrious ; in the latter the climate was unfavourable to human life spent in severe toil, but the soil was teeming with riches. The old states, therefore, undertook the part of breeding and rear ing slaves till they attained to physical vigour, and the new that of using up in the development of their virgin resources the physical vigour which had been thus obtained.* * " The citizens of Virginia indignantly deny that they breed and rear slaves for the purpose of selling them. Not only do those who interpose this denial do so, in the vast majority of cases, with a consciousness of truth; but, perhaps, in no single instance can it be truly affirmed, that any individual slave is raised for the purpose of being sold. The determination to rear slaves is formed and executed this year, while the act of selling may not take place until twenty years hence. The two things are probably never resolved and consummated as parts of one plan. The fallacy of the denial 8* I 1 6 THE SLAVE TRADE SECURELY FOUNDED It has been contended that the constant drain of slaves must have its effect in diminishing, and ulti mately exhausting, the slave population in the states from which it proceeds ; and on this ground the domestic slave trade has found advocates amongst persons who profess themselves opposed to slavery in general, as tending to effect its extinction in the older states. But such a view, if sincerely enter tained, can only find credit with those who are unacquainted with the laws of population, and it has been amply refuted by the experience of half a century. Far from conducing in the slightest degree to the decline of slavery in the older states, the inter-state traffic has tended directly to estab lish it, and the slave population of those states has steadily increased under the drain. The single ex- interposed by the people of Virginia consists in this, that, although no one slave may be raised with a special view to his sale, yet the entire business of raising slaves is carried on with reference to the price of slaves, and solely in consequence of the price of slaves ; and this price depends, as they well know, solely upon the domestic slave trade. Of the men who deny for themselves individually the fact of raising slaves for the purpose of selling them, too many make no scruple in insisting upon markets to keep up the price of slaves. The well-known lamentation of a successful candidate for the gov ernorship of Virginia, uttered without rebuke before a Virginia audience, that the closing of the mines of California to slave labour, had prevented the price of an able-bodied negro man from rising to five thousand dollars, is only a single example of the freedom and publicity with which the domestic slave trade is advocated in that state." — Progress of Slavery, pp. 147-148. IN THE PRINCIPLES OF POPULATION. 1 1 7 ception to this statement is the State of Delaware, and Delaware is the only one of those states in which the sale or removal of slaves is prohibited by law. The real character of the influence exercised by the internal trade on the breeding states was strikingly shown on the annexation of Texas. That event oc curred in 1 844. It was followed by a great increase in the demand for slaves for the South, and with what effect on the states which supplied them ? — with the effect of a positive increase in their slave population. The slave population of the principal slave-breeding state, Virginia, had declined in the decade previous to the annexation, but at the end of the following decade it was found to have increased. The explanation of this is, of course, perfectly simple. Slaves in the older states being of little value for agricultural purposes, there is no inducement to encourage their increase so long as agriculture is the sole purpose to which they can be turned ; but with the increase of the slave trade, their value in creases, and they are, therefore, raised in greater numbers. The phenomenon need surprise no one who has attended to the ordinary facts of emigrating countries. The United Kingdom is of all European countries that from which emigration is greatest, and it is also that in which population increases most rapidly. Emigration from Germany is greater than from France, and population in Germany ad- Il8 THE ANALOGY OF CATTLE BREEDING. vances more rapidly than in France. Spain and Portugal were once colonizing nations, and since they have ceased to colonize, the rate at which their population increases has declined. A more apposite illustration is that of cattle breeding. It has never been found that the opening of new markets for cattle has any tendency to exhaust the breed in the countries which raise them ; and, so long as human beings are subjected to precisely the same influences as cattle, it is idle to expect a different result. In each case the power of multiplication is the same, and where the same inducement is offered, a cor responding result may be expected to follow. CHAPTER V. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. IT may be well here to trace briefly the salient features of the system which in the previous chap ters it has been attempted to describe. A race supe rior to another in power and civilization holds that other in bondage, compelling it to work for its profit. The enslaved race, separated broadly from the dominant one in its leading physical and moral attributes, is further distinguished from it by the indelible mark of colour, which prevents the growth of mutual sympathy and transmits to posterity the brand of its disgrace. Kept in compulsory ignorance and deprived of all motive for intelligent exertion, this people can only furnish its possessors with the crudest form of manual labour. It is thus rendered unfit for every branch of industry which requires, in any but the lowest forms, the exercise of care, in telligence, or skill, and is virtually restricted to the pursuit of agriculture. In agriculture it can only be turned to profitable account under certain special conditions — in raising crops of a peculiar kind and upon soils of more than average fertility ; while these by its thriftless methods it tends constantly 120 OUTLINE OF THE ECONOMY to exhaust. The labour of the enslaved race is thus in practice confined to the production of a few lead ing staples ; but, through the medium of foreign trade, these few commodities become the means of furnishing its masters with all the conveniences and comforts of life — the product of intelligence and skill in countries where labour is free. Further, it was seen that the defects of servile labour are best neutralized, and such advantages as it possesses best turned to account, where the scale of the oper ations is large, — a circumstance, which, by placing a premium on the employment of large capitals, has gradually led to the accumulation of the whole wealth of the country in the hands of a small num ber of persons. Four million slaves have thus come into the possession of masters less than one-tenth of their number, by whom they are held as chattel property ; while the rest of the dominant race, more numerous than slaveholders and their slaves together, squat over the vast area which slave labour is too unskilful to cultivate, where by hunting and fishing, by plunder or by lawless adventure, they eke out a precarious livelihood. Three leading elements are thus presented by the economy of slave states — a few planters cultivating the richest soils, a multitude of slaves toiling for their profit, the bulk of the white population dispersed in a semi-savage condi tion over a vast territory. In course of time the OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 121 system begins to bear its fruit. The more fertile soils of the country, tasked again and again to ren der the same products, at length become exhausted, and refuse any longer to yield up their riches to servile hands ; but there are new soils within reach which the plough has not yet touched, regions of high fertility, pre-eminently fitted for the cultiva tion of slave products, bordering hoivever on the tropics, and unfavourable to human life when en gaged in severe toil. At this point a new phase of the system discloses itself. A division of labour takes place. A portion of the slaveholders with their slave bands move forward to occupy the new territory, while the remainder, holding to their old seats, become the breeders of slaves for those who have left them, and take, as their part, the repairing from their more healthy populations the waste of slave life produced by tropical toil./ Thus, as the do main of slavery is extended, its organization becomes more complete, and the fate of the slave population more harsh and hopeless. Slavery in its simple and primitive form is developed into slavery supported by a slave trade — into slavery expansive, aggressive, destructive of human life, regardless of human ties, — into slavery in its most dangerous and most atro cious form ; and for the system thus matured a secure basis is afforded by the principles of popula tion. Such is an outline of the economy of society 122 THEY INCLUDE NO ELEMENT OF PROGRESS. in the Slave States of North America, as I have Veru. tured to describe it ; and the condition of facts which it discloses goes far, as it seems to me, to establish the conclusion that it is a structure essentially differ ent from any form of social life which has hitherto been known among progressive communities, and one which, if allowed to proceed in its normal de velopment undisturbed by intervention from without, can only conduct to one issue — an organized bar barism of the most relentless and formidable kind. But it may be well to pursue this inquiry some what further. If the germs of a future civilization are contained in the social system which has been described, in what department of it are they to be found ? Among the mean whites ? Among the slaves ? Among the slave masters ? The mean whites, as has been shown, are the natural growth of the slave system ; their existence and character flowing necessarily from two facts — the slaves, which render the capitalists independent of their services,* and the wilderness, the constant feature of slave countries, which enables them to exist without engaging in regular work. There is no capital to support them as hired labour ers, and they have the means of subsisting, in a semi-savage condition, without it. Under these cir- * " The rich," said General Marion, and in these few words he sketched the whole working of slavery, " have no need of the poor, because they have their own slaves to do their work." THE MEAN WHITES. 123 cumstances, by what steps are they to advance to an improvement of their condition ? It will perhaps be thought that with a vast unap propriated territory around them the mean whites may be expected in time to become peasant proprie tors, and to cultivate the districts which they now merely occupy. This is undoubtedly what would happen with an influx of Northern settlers. But the mean whites lack for such a lot two indispensable requisites, capital and industry. Had they the lat ter, they might perhaps in time acquire the former ; but regular industry is only known to them as the vocation of slaves, and it is the one fate which above all others they desire to avoid. They will for a time, indeed, when pressed for food, their ordinary re sources of hunting or plunder failing them, hire themselves out for occasional services ; but, so soon as they have satisfied the immediate need, they hasten to escape from the degradation of industry, and are as eager as Indians to return to their wilds. Another means of redemption is sometimes ima gined for the mean whites. It is thought that, with the progress of population in the Slave States, they will ultimately be forced into competition with the slaves, and that, this competition once effectually commenced, the whites once engaged in regular industry, the superiority of free to servile labour will become manifest, and will gradually lead to the 124 GROWTH OF REGULAR INDUSTRY displacement of the latter. In this way, it is anticipated, the problem of abolishing slavery, and that of elevating the white population, may in the natural course of events be effectually solved by the same process. Unfortunately this cheering view is entirely unsustained by any foundation of fact. Population in slave communities follows laws of growth of its own. It increases, it is true, but by dispersion, not by concentration, and consequently the pressure upon the poor white, which it is assumed will force him into competition with the slave, is never likely to be greater than at the pre sent moment. In fact it has now in many districts reached the starvation point, but without producing any of the effects which are anticipated from it. But, again, the free labour of the South possesses none of that superiority to slave labour, which is characteristic of free labour when reared in free com munities. This is a distinction which in economic reasonings on slavery is frequently overlooked,* * Tims a writer in the Saturday Review (Nov. 2, 1861), in noticing a work of Mr. Olmsted's, reasons as follows : — " It would be hasty to infer, as a great many philanthropists have done, that free labour would answer better than slave labour in the South. The Southern planters are keen enough speculators to have discovered the fact if it were true. In reality the experiment has been tried and resulted in favour of slave labour." The experi ment no doubt has been tried, and with the result alleged ; but how far the experiment, as it has been conducted, is conclusive, the reader will be enabled to judge when he reads the following passage A MORAL IMPOSSIBILITY. 125 but which it is all-important to bear in mind. The free labourer reared in free communities, energetic, intelligent, animated by the impulse of acquiring property, and trained to habits of thrift, is the best productive agent in the world, and, when brought into competition with the slave, will, except under very exceptional circumstances (such as existed when the continent was first settled), prove more than a match for him. But the free labourer of the South, from Mr. Olmsted, in a review of one of whose works the above argument occurred : — " The labourer, who in New York gave a certain amount of labour for his wages in a day, soon finds in Virginia that the ordinary measure of labour is smaller than in New York : a ' day's work5 or a month's does not mean the same that it did in New York. He naturally adapts his wares to the market. . . . The labourer, finding that the capitalists of Virginia are accus tomed to pay for a poor article at a high price, prefers to furnish them the poor article at their usual price, rather than a better article, unless at a more than correspondingly better pric& . . . Now let the white labourer come here from the North 6r from Europe — his nature demands a social life — shall he associate with the poor, slavish, degraded negro, with whom labour and punishment are almost synonymous 1 or shall he be the friend and companion of the white man1? . . . Associating with either or both, is it not inevitable that he will be rapidly demoralized — that he will soon learn to hate labour, give as little of it for his hire as he can, become base, cowardly, faithless, — 'worse than a nigger"?" The case is simple. The moral atmosphere generated by slavery in the South corrupts the free labourer, whether native or imported : thus corrupted, he fails in competition with the slave ; but does it follow from this that, if slavery no longer existed, free labour would be less efficient in the South than slave labour is at present? For that is the point. 1 26 ABSENCE OF REGULAK INDUSTRY : blighted physically and morally by the presence of slavery, and trained in habits more suited to savage than to industrial life, easily succumbs in the compe tition. In fact the experiment is being constantly tried in the Southern States, and always with the same result. On the relative merits of slave and free labour — such free labour as the Slave States can produce — there is but one opinion among the planters. It is universally agreed that the labour of the mean whites* is more inefficient, more unreli able, more unmanageable than even the crude eiforts of the slaves. If slavery in the South is to be dis placed by free industry, it can never be through the competition of such free industry as this. It does not appear, therefore, in what manner habits of regular industry can ever be acquired by the mass of the population of the Southern States while under a slave regime. The demoralization produced by the presence of a degraded class ren ders the white man at once an unwilling and an inefficient labourer ; and the external incidents of slavery afford him the means of existing without engaging in regular toil. The question has, in truth, passed beyond the region of speculation. For two hundred years it has been submitted to the proof ; and the mean whites are as far now from having * And it may be added, of such free labourers as will consent to the degradation of living in a slave community. ITS CONSEQUENCES. 127 made any progress in habits of regular industry as they were at the commencement of the period. The result, then, at which we arrive is, that re gular industry is not to be expected from the mass of the free people of the Southern States while sla very continues. Let us for a moment reflect upon some of the consequences involved in this single fact. And, first, it is evident that under these condi tions population in the Slave States must ever re main sparse ; for density of population is the result of concentrated wealth, and concentrated wealth flows from the steady pursuit of systematic industry. What are the facts ? Over the whole area of the Slave States the average density of population does not exceed 11.29 persons to the square mile. It is true a large portion of the region included in this average has but recently been acquired, and cannot be considered as having yet received its full comple ment of inhabitants. Let us, then, confine our ob servations to the older states. If population be capable of becoming dense under slave institutions, it should have realized this condition in Virginia. This state has been for two hundred and fifty years the seat of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the chosen field of its industry : it abounds in natural advan tages ; its climate is remarkably salubrious. What, then, is the result of the experiment in Virginia ? 128 EXTREME SPAESENESS OF POPULATION. It appears from the census of 1850, that, after an industrial career of two hundred and fifty years, this country contained an average of 23 persons to the square mile ! This, however, does not ade quately represent the case ; for of these 23 persons one-third on an average were slaves. Deducting these, the density of population in Virginia — of population among whom knowledge is not consi dered contraband, of population who are capable of mixing together as fellow-citizens (which is the point essential to our argument) — the density of this popu lation is represented by the proportion of 15 per sons to the square mile ! Compare this with the progress of population in an area of the Free States naturally less favourable to the multiplication of people and not so long settled, — with the area com prised by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania — and what do we find ? Population has here, in a shorter time, and under external conditions less favourable, reached an average density of 82 persons to the square mile. For equal areas in the Free and Slave States there are thus considerably more than five persons capable of taking part in the business of civi lized life in the former for one in the latter. Popu lation under slave institutions, in fact, only increases by dispersion. Fifteen persons to the square mile represent the maximum density which population INCOMPATIBLE WITH CIVILIZED PROGRESS. 129 under the most favourable circumstances is, with slavery, capable of attaining.* Now, this state of things is incompatible with civilized progress. Under such conditions social intercourse cannot exist; po pular education becomes impracticable ; roads, ca nals, railways, must be losing speculations ; in short, all the civilizing agencies of highest value are, by the very nature of the case, excluded. Among a people so dispersed, for example, how is popular education to be carried on ? Not to dwell upon the obstacles presented to the diifusion of knowledge by the men tal habits of a people accustomed to the life of the mean whites — a life alternating between listless va grancy and the excitement of marauding expeditions — the mere physical difficulties of the problem — the task of bringing together from a population so dis persed the materials of a school — would be such as might well discourage the most determined zeal. In point of fact, all attempts at conveying education to the bulk of the people in the Southern States have proved costly failures. Experiments have been made in some of the states, and always with the same re- * The density of population in Delaware, Maryland, and Ken tucky is no doubt greater than this ; but it is because these States are occupied, over considerable districts, with a free labouring pea santry, because in fact in these districts slavery has been abolished. This is the case with Western Virginia also to a considerable extent, and doubtless raises the average of the whole country above what a purely servile regime would produce. 130 EXTREME SFARSENESS OF POPULATION suit.* The moral and physical difficulties of the problem have proved insuperable; and the mass of the people remains, and under the present social system ever must remain, entirely uninstructed. Nor is this the only way in which sparseness of population operates unfavourably on the intellectual progress of a people. Scarcely less important than school teaching, as instruments of popular education, are the societies established for the mutual improve ment of those who take part in them, such as me chanics' institutes, and literary and scientific asso ciations, of which such extensive use is made in this country and in the Northern States. But from this efficacious mode of awakening intelligence, a people, whose social institutions prevent it from attaining greater concentration than is reached by the people of the South, is entirely excluded, f Lastly, how are the means of communication to * See Olrnsted's Seaboard Slave States, pp. 291, 292, 366, 367, 503. t Some statistics bearing upon this aspect of the question have been given by Mr. Helper, which are sufficiently striking. It appears that the number of public libraries throughout the whole of the Slave States are only 695 against 14,911 in the Free States ; or about i public library in the South for 2 1 in the I^orth. Again, the number of volumes in public libraries in the Slave States is 649,577; while the number in public libraries in the Free States is 3,888,284 ; that is to say, in the proportion of about i to 6. — (Helper's Impending Crisis, p. 337.) Probably, were the quality of the literature as well as the quantity given, the result would be still more significant. INCOMPATIBLE WITH CIVILIZED PROGRESS. 131 be developed under such conditions ? How are rail ways to be made profitable in a population of fifteen persons to the square mile ? Railways, no doubt, have been made in the South, but with more advan tage to the travellers than to the shareholders. In South Carolina a train has been known to travel a hundred miles with a single passenger.* The mean whites seern thus, under an inexorable law, to be bound to their present fate by the same chain which holds the slave to his. Slavery pro duces distaste for industry. Distaste for industry, coexisting with a wilderness which is also the fruit of slavery, disperses population over vast areas as the one condition of its increase. Among such a people the requisites of progress do not exist ; the very elements of civilization are wanting. If, then, society is to advance in the South, we must look somewhere else than among the mass of the white population for the motive principle which is to propel it. And where are we to look? Southern society furnishes but two other elements — the slaves and their masters. What germ of hope does either of these present ? If civilization is to spring up among the negro race, it will scarcely be contended that this will happen while they are still slaves ; and if the present ruling class are ever to rise above the existing type, it must be in some * See Stirling's Letters from the Slave States, p, 265. 9* 132, PROSPECT OF SPONTANEOUS EMANCIPATION. other capacity than as slaveholders. The whole question therefore turns ultimately on the chances of slave emancipation. Slave emancipation may, of course, be forced upon the South by pressure from without ; but the point which we have now to con sider is the prospect of this result being attained in the natural course of its internal development. And first let us observe the inherent difficulty of the problem. It was shown in a former chapter that in the system of North American slavery, ob stacles exist to the emancipation of the slave which had no place among the ancients. It may now be added that the difficulties of slave emancipation in the present Slave States are far greater than those which were successfully encountered in the North ern. Owing to causes already explained, slavery had never taken very firm root in the North : it was becoming, with the growth of society, con stantly less profitable : the total number of slaves formed but a small fraction of the whole popula tion : above all, the Northern States had in the markets of the South a ready means of ridding themselves, at trifling loss, of a class which had be come an incumbrance. For, to borrow the words of De Tocqueville, the overthrow of slavery in the Northern States was effected " by abolishing the principle of slavery, not by setting the slaves free." The Northern people did not emancipate negroes who MODERN PRECEDENTS INAPPLICABLE. 133 were enslaved, but they provided for the future ex tinction of slavery by legislating for the freedom of their offspring. The operation of this plan may be readily supposed. The future offspring of the slave having by the law of a particular state been declared free, the slave himself lost a portion of his value in that state. But in the South these laws had no force, and consequently in the South the value of the slave was unaltered by the change. The effect, therefore, of the Northern mea sures of abolition was, for the most part, simply to transfer Northern slaves to Southern markets. In this way, by an easy process, without incurring any social danger, and at slight pecuniary loss^ the Northern States got rid of slavery. The problem of enfranchisement in the South is of a very dif ferent character. Slavery, instead of being, as it always was in the North, but one, and an unim portant one, among many modes of industry, is there virtually the sole industrial instrument : in- stead of comprising an insignificant fraction of the whole population, it comprises throughout the whole South one-third, and in some States one-half: it numbers altogether four millions of people : lastly, the South is wholly without that easy means of shuffling off slavery which its own markets pro vided for the North. The two cases are thus wholly unlike, and the spontaneous disappearance 134 ECONOMIC CAUSES of slavery from the Northern section of the Union gives little ground to hope for a similar result in the present Slave States. And still less warranted are we in expecting a policy of emancipation from the South by the his tory of British emancipation in the West Indies ; for that event was not brought about in the natural course of social improvement in those islands, but was forced upon them by the mother nation, in the face of the protests and remonstrances of their ruling classes. Instead of being the natural result of prin ciples called into action under slave institutions, it was only accomplished with difficulty through the direct and forcible interposition of an external au thority. So far as to ancient and modern precedents : they are palpably inapplicable to the present case. But there are those who anticipate the growth of a liber al policy in the South from the gradual operation of economic causes in ultimately identifying the in terests of planters with those of the general commu nity.* It will be worth while briefly to examine * Mr. Stirling relies upon the following considerations as contain ing the solution of the problem. " Within the last ten or fifteen years the value of slaves has risen fifty per cent, at least. During the same time the price of bacon has risen 100 to 200 per cent. Let this process only be continued for ten years longer, and where will be the profits of the cotton-planter 1 And here we may per haps find the long-looked- for solution of the nigger question. When NOT TO BE RELIED ON. 135 the argument which is founded upon this view of the case. It is said that free labour (regarded from a purely economic point of view — moral considera tions apart) being superior to slave labour, and this principle being exemplified by the whole industrial history of the Northern and Southern States — the former, though naturally less fertile, having far out stripped the latter in the race of material prosperity — the truth must ultimately be recognised by the slaveholders themselves, and that, so soon as this happens, they will be led by self interest to adopt a policy of emancipation. The case may indeed be put more strongly than this ; for slavery has not merely thwarted the general prosperity of the South, slave-labour becomes unprofitable, the slave will be emancipated. South. Carolina herself will turn abolitionist when slavery ceases to pay. When she finds that a brutalized race cannot and will not give as much efficient labour for the money as a hired class of supe rior workers, it is possible that she may lay aside the cowhide, and offer wages to her niggers." — Letters from Slave States, pp. 182, 183. The argument is palpably fallacious. It is the same as if one were to argue that the high rent of land must ultimately destroy agricul ture. In each case the high price of the ftatural agent — land or slaves — results from the comparative profitableness of capital in vested in the employment of one or the other. When the high price of land leads landlords to throw up their estates, an analogous course of conduct may be expected from slaveholders from an analogous inducement. The high price of the slave's food is scarcely to the point, since this must tell also against the free labourer : at all events, so long as the slave fetches any price, it is a proof that he is considered to be worth at least more than his keep. 136 ECONOMIC CAUSES it may even be shown to have operated to the spe cial detriment of the particular class for whose exclusive behoof it is maintained. For the slave holders of the South are also its landed proprietors, and the uniform effect of slavery (as has been shown in a former part of this essay) has been, by confin ing cultivation to the rich soils, to prevent the growth of rent. So powerfully, indeed, has this cause operated, that it has been calculated, appa rently upon good grounds,* that the mere difference in rent between the returns from lands of equal quality in the Free and Slave States would be more than sufficient * to buy up the whole slave pro perty of the South. By the abolition of slavery in that country, therefore, not merely would the gene ral prosperity of the inhabitants be promoted, but, by the rise of rent which would be the consequence of this measure, there would result to slaveholders a special gain — a gain which, it may reasonably be thought, would form a liberal compensation for any temporary inconvenience they might suffer from the change. Considerations so obvious, it is argued, must in the end have their effect on the minds of the ruling class in the South, and must lead them before long to abolish a system which is fraught with such baleful effects to the country and to themselves. * See Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, pp. 17°? I7I- NOT TO BE RELIED ON. 137 To the soundness of this reasoning, so far as it proves the beneficial results which would follow from the abolition of slavery, I do not think that any valid objection can be offered. It appears to me as demonstrable as any proposition in Euclid, that, extending our view over some generations, slavery has acted injuriously on every class and every inter est in the South, and that its continued maintenance is absolutely incompatible with the full development of the resources of the country. Nevertheless it would, I conceive, be infinitely precarious from this position to infer that slaveholders will ever be induced voluntarily to abolish slavery. The slave holders of the South are perfectly aware of the supe rior prosperity of the Free States : it is with them a subject of bitter mortification and envy ; but, with the most conclusive evidence before their eyes, they persist in attributing this to every cause but the right one. Supposing, however, that they are in the end convinced, by such arguments as I have referred to, of the injurious effects of their system, and that they are satisfied that the immediate loss from the abolition of slavery would be more than made good to their descendants in the future in crease in the value of their land, still I apprehend that they would be as far as ever from being won over to a policy of abolition. For, what ever be the future advantages which may be ex- 138 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL MOTIVES pected from the change, it is vain to deny that the transition from slavery to freedom could not be effected without great inconvenience, loss, and, doubtless, in many cases, ruin, to the present race of slaveholders. The accumulated results of two hundred years of tyranny, cruelty, and disregard of the first of human rights are not thus easily evaded. A sacrifice there would need to be.* And it is vain to expect that slaveholders, of whose system selfishness is the fundamental prin ciple, and whose profits are purchased, not merely at the cost of misery to a whole race of living men, but at the cost of the future prosperity of their own decendants, whose interests in the soil their spend thrift system anticipates — it is vain to expect that they of all men should voluntarily devote themselves for the good of their country. So long, therefore, as slaveholders have at their disposal an unlimited extent of fertile soil suited to slave products, it is, I think, vain to hope that the question of slavery will ever find its solution in economic motives. But, in truth, it is idle to argue this question on purely economic grounds. It is not simply as a produc tive instrument that slavery is valued by its sup- * The West Indian experiment, I conceive, proves this as con clusively as it proves that the ultimate and permanent results of emancipation are beneficial to the whole country in the highest degree. THE REAL STRENGTH OF AMERICAN SLAVERY. 139 porters. It is far rather for its social and political results — as the means of upholding a form of society in which slaveholders are the sole depositaries of social prestige and political power, as the " corner stone" of an edifice of which they are the masters — that the system is prized. Abolish slavery, and you introduce a new order of things, in which the ascen dancy of the men who now rule in the South would be at an end. An immigration of new^ men would set in rapidly from various quarters. The planters and their adherents would soon be placed in a hope less minority in their old dominions. New inter ests would take root and grow ; new social ideas would germinate ; new political combinations would be formed ; and the power and hopes of the party which has long swayed the politics of the Union, and which now seeks to break loose from that Union in order to secure a free career for the accomplishment of bolder designs, would be gone for ever. It is this which constitutes the real strength of slavery in the Southern States, and which precludes even the momentary admission by the dominant party there of any proposition which has abolition for its object. And in view of this aspect of North American slavery, we may see how perfectly futile, how abso lutely childish, is the suggestion, that the Slave party should be bought over by the Federal govern ment through the offer of a liberal compensation, FURTHER SUPPORT TO SLAVERY after the precedent of Great Britain dealing with her West Indian possessions. Putting aside the magni tude of the sum, which, at the price of slaves which recently prevailed, would certainly not be less than £300,000,000 sterling, and the impossibility of rais ing it in the present state of American credit, who that knows anything of the aims of the Southern party can suppose that the proposal, if made, would not be rejected with scorn ?* The suggestion sup poses that men who have long held paramount in fluence over the North American continent, and who are probably now meditating plans of annexa tion and conquest, would at once abandon their posi tion as the chiefs of an independent confederacy, and forego their ambitious schemes, for what ? — for a sum of money which, if well invested, might per haps enable them and their descendants to vegetate in peaceful obscurity ! But there is yet another influence to be taken * I am speaking, of course, of the reception which the proposition would meet with while the Slave party were yet triumphant. "What it might be induced to accept if thoroughly beaten by the North, is another question which it is not necessary here to discuss. Since these observations were written the news, of Mr. Lincoln's project of emancipation has arrived. It will be seen that the con dition stated in the last sentence — the subjugation of the South — is precisely the circumstance which gives to that scheme the least chance of success. Mr. Lincoln knew too well the men with whom he had to deal to think of making such an offer till he was, or thought himself, in a position to enforce it. IN THE ETHICS AND THEOLOGY OF THE SOUTH. 141 account of in arguing this question. Slavery has not merely determined the general form and character of the social and political economy of the Southern States, it has entered into the soul of the people, and has generated a code of ethics and a type of Christi anity adapted to its peculiar requirements. At the epoch of the revolution, as has been already intimated, slavery was regarded by all the eminent men who took part in that movement as essentially an evil — an evil which might indeed be palliated as having come down to that genera tion from an earlier and less enlightened age, and which, having intwined itself with the institutions of the country, required to be delicately dealt with — but still an evil, indefensible on moral and religious grounds, and which ought not to be perma nently endured. The Convention of 1774 unani mously condemned the practice of holding slaves. The Convention of 1787, while legislating for the continuance of slavery, resolved to exclude from the constitution the word " slave," lest it should be thought that the American nation gave any sanc tion to "the idea that there could be property in men." Washington, a native of the South and a slaveholder, declared it to be among his first wishes to see slavery abolished by law, and in his will provided for the emancipation of his slaves. Jeffer son, also a native of the South and a slaveholder, 142 GROWTH OF THE PRO-SLAVERY SENTIMENT. framed a plan of abolition, and declared that in the presence of slavery " he trembled for his country when he reflected that God was just ;" that in the event of a rising of slaves, " the Almighty had no attribute which could take side with slaveowners in such a contest." The other leading statesmen of that time, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Patrick Henry, the Randolphs, Munroe, whether from the North or from the South, whether agreeing or not in their views on the practical mode of dealing with the institution, alike concurred in reprobating at least the principle of slavery. But it seems impossible that a whole people should live permanently in contemplation of a system which does violence to its moral instincts. One of two results will happen. Either its moral instincts will lead it to reform the institution which offends them, or those instincts will be perverted, and become authorities for what in their unsophisticated condi tion they condemned. The latter alternative is that which has happened in the Southern States. Slavery is no longer regarded there as a barbarous institu tion, to be palliated with whispering humbleness as an inheritance from a ruder age ; but rather as a system admirable for its intrinsic excellence, worthy to be upheld and propagated, the last and completest result of time.* The right of the white man to * It is instructive to observe the gradation by which this advan- ITS ABSORBING STRENGTH, 1 43 hold the negro in permanent thraldom, to compel him to work for his profit, to keep him in enforced ignorance, to sell him, to flog him, and, if need be, to kill him, to separate him at pleasure from his wife and children, to transport him for no crime to a remote region where he is in a few years worked to death — this is now propounded as a grand dis covery in ethical and political science, made for the first time by the enlightened leaders of the Southern Confederation, and recommended by that philan thropic body to all civilized nations for their adop tion. This Confederation, which is the opprobrium of the age, puts itself forward as a model for its imita tion, and calmly awaits the tardy applause of man kind. " The ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old Constitution," says the Vice- president of the Southern Confederacy, " were that the enslavement of the African race was in violation of the laws of nature ; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. Our new govern ment is founded on exactly opposite ideas; its founda tions are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man ; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is ced point has been reached. Thirty years ago it was contended " that there was not the slightest moral turpitude in holding slaves under existing circumstances in the South." — Quarterly Eeview, Sept. and Dec., 1832. 1 44 ITS ABSORBING STRENGTH. his natural and moral condition. This our Govern- ment is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. It is upon this our social fabric is firmly planted, and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of the full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world. . . . This stone which was rejected by the first builders ' is become the chief stone of the corner ' in our new edifice."* Opinion in the South has long passed beyond the stage at which slavery needs to be defended by argument. The subject is now never touched but in a strain such as the freedom conquered at Mara thon and Platsea inspired in the orators of Athens. It is " the beneficent source and wholesome founda tion of our civilization ;" an institution, " moral and civilizing, useful at once to blacks and whites." " To suppress slavery would be to throw back civilization two hundred years." "It is not a moral evil. It is the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes. . . It is by divine appointment." But slavery in the South is something more than a moral and political principle : it has become a fashionable taste, a social passion. The possession of a slave in the South carries with it the same sort of prestige as the possession of land in this country, * Speech of Mr. A. H. Stephens, Vice-president of the Southern Confederacy, delivered March, 1861. ITS UNIVERSALITY. 145 as the possession of a horse among the Arabs : it brings the owner into connexion with the privileged class ; it forms a presumption that he has attained a certain social position. Slaves have thus in the South acquired a factitious value, and are coveted with an eagerness far beyond what the intrinsic utility of their services would explain. A Chancel lor of South Carolina describes slavery as in accord ance with " the proudest and most deeply cher ished feelings " of his countrymen — " feelings, which others, if they will, may call prejudices." A gover nor of Kansas declares that he "loves" the insti tution, and that he votes for it because he " loves" it. Nor are these sentiments confined to the slave- holding minority. The all-important circumstance is that they are shared equally by the whole white population. Far from reprobating a system which has deprived them of the natural means of rising in the scale of humanity, they fall in with the prevail ing modes of thought, and are warm admirers, and, when need arises, effective defenders, of an institu tion which has been their curse. To be the owner of a slave is the chief object of the poor white's am bition ; " quot servos pascit ?" the one criterion by which he weighs the worth of his envied superiors in the social scale. Such has been the course of opinion on the sub ject of slavery in the Southern States. The progress 146 HOPELESSNESS OF THE SLAVE'S POSITION. of events, far from conducing to the gradual mitiga tion and ultimate extinction of the system, has tended distinctly in the opposite direction — to the aggravation of its worst evils and the consolida tion of its strength. The extension of the area subject to the Slave Power and the increase in the slave population have augmented at once the inducements for retaining the institution and the difficulty of getting rid of it ; while the ideas of successive generations, bred up in its presence and under the influence of the interests to which it has given birth, have provided for it in the minds of the people a moral support. The result is, that the posi tion of the slave in the Southern States at the pre sent time, so far as it depends upon the will and power of his masters, is in all respects more hopeless than it has ever been in any former age, or in any other quarter of the world. A Fugitive Slave law, which throws into shade the former atrocities of slavery, has been enacted, and until the recent dis turbances was strictly enforced. The education of the negro is more than ever rigorously pro scribed. Emancipation finds in the growth of fana tical pro-slavery opinions obstacles more formi dable even than in the laws. Propositions have been entertained by the legislatures in some states for reducing all free coloured persons to slavery by one wholesale enactment ; in others these people SOCIAL COST OF THE SYSTEM. 147 have been banished from the state under pain of this fate. Everything in the laws, in the customs, in the education of the people, has been contrived with the single view of degrading the negro to the level of the brute, and blotting out from his mind the hope and even the idea of freedom. The thoroughness — the absolute disregard of all consequences with which this purpose has been pur sued, is but little understood in this country. His tory can supply no instance of a despotism more complete and searching than that which for some years past has prevailed in the Southern States. Since the attempt of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, its oppression has reached a height which can only be adequately described as a reign of terror. It is long since freedom of discussion on any question connected with slavery would have been tolerated. But it is not merely freedom of discussion which is now prohibited. The design seems to have been formed of putting down freedom of thought, and of banishing from the South every trace of dissentient opinion. A system of espionage has been organized. The mail bags have in many states been freely opened, and the postmasters of petty villages have exercised a free discretion -in giving or withholding the documents entrusted to their care. In the more southern states vigilance committees have been established en permanence. Before these self- 10* 148 TERRORISM. constituted tribunals persons of unblemished reputa tion and inoffensive manners have been summoned, and, on a few days' notice, for no other offence than that of being known to entertain sentiments un favourable to slavery, have been banished from the state where they resided ; and this in direct viola tion of a specific provision of the Constitution of the United States.* Clergymen, who have broken no law, for merely discharging their duties accord ing to their consciences, have been arrested, thrown into prison, and visited with ignominious punish ment. Travellers, who have incautiously, in ignor ance of the intensity of the popular feeling, ven tured to give temperate expression to anti-slavery opinions, have been seized by the mob, tarred and feathered, ducked, flogged, and in some instances hanged. Nay, so sensitively jealous has the feel ing of the South become, that the slightest link of connexion with a suspected locality — to have re sided in the North, to have sent one's children to a Northern school — is sufficient to secure expulsion from a slave state. An abolitionist in the ethics of the South is the vilest of all human beings, and every one is an abolitionist who does not reside in a slave state and share to the full the prevailing * " The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privi leges and immunities of citizens in the several states." TERRORISM. 149 pro-slavery sentiment.* Such is the point which civilization has reached under slave institutions. At this cost the system is maintained.! * It may readily be conceived that Southern intolerance did not relax as the great social schism approached its crisis. M. Cucheval- Clarigny gives the following vivid sketch of the measures by which unionist sentiment was overborne in the South: — >" Chaque jour on voyait arriver, dans les etats du centre ou de 1'ouest, des gens qui avaient e"te denonces comme mal pensans, et qui avaient re9U, par lettre anonyme, T invitation d'emigrer dans les vingt-quatre heures, sous peine de voir leur maison incendiee et de recevoir un coup de couteau. Les journaux de la Nouvelle-Orleans, qui com- battaient la separation, furent contraints Tun apres 1'autre de cesser leur publication ou de changer completement de langage. Dans les villes un peu importantes du sud, des bandes armees parcouraient les rues, precedees d'un drapeau avec le palmier, et des menaces de mort e"taient prof^rees devant les maisons des gens suspects d'attachement h 1' Union. Quand une legislature paraissait hesiter devant un vote belliqueux, on tenait des reunions publiques pour gourmander sa len- teur, et on lui adressait des objurgations. On ne parlait de rien moins en effet dans certains e"tats que de faire voter des mesures d' excep tion, remprisonnement ou 1' exile des suspects, et la confiscation de leurs biens." — Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1860, p. 617. t The Reign of Terror in the South, &c. passim ; also Reports of the American Anti-Slavery Society, for the years 1857-60. CHAPTER VI. EXTERNAL POLICY OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. IN the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to analyze the system of society presented in the Slave States, and to ascertain the direction in which, under ordinary circumstances, and in the absence of intervention from without, the development of such a system proceeds ; and the result of an examina tion, as well of the several elements of which the whole society is composed as of their joint action, has been to show that it is essentially retrograde in its character, containing within it no germs from which improvement can grow, and no forces compe tent to counteract those which press it downwards. In the remaining portion of this essay I shall endea vour to exhibit the working of this system in the politics of the Union ; and as, in relation to the people who compose it, the social system of the Slave States has been seen to be retrograde, so, in relation to other societies with which it may come into contact, it will be found to be aggressive — to be constantly urged by exigencies, which it cannot control, to extend its territory, and by an ambition not less inevitable to augment its power. ITS AGGRESSIVE CHARACTER, 1^1 The aggressive character of a social system deriv ing its strength from slavery — that is to say of a Slave Power — proceeds primarily from the well- known economic fact, already more than once ad verted to — the necessary limitation of slave-culture to soils of more than average richness, combined with its tendency to exhaust them. It results from this that societies based upon slavery cannot, like those founded upon free industrial institutions, take root, grow, and nourish upon a limited area. To secure their vigour, their roots must be always spreading. A constant supply of fresh soils of high fertility becomes, therefore, an indispensable requi site for the permanent industrial success of such societies. This is a fundamental principle in their political economy, and one which, we shall find, exercises a powerful influence on the course of their general history. As the principle will hereafter be frequently referred to, it is important to observe that it is one about which no controversy can be said to exist, being as fully recognized by the up holders as by the opponents of slavery. " There is not a slaveholder," says Judge Warner of Georgia, " in this house or out of it, but who knows perfectly well that, whenever slavery is confined within cer tain specified limits, its future existence is doomed ; it is only a question of time as to its final destruc tion. You may take any single slaveholding county 152 EXPANSION A NECESSITY OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. in the Southern States, in which the great staples of cotton and sugar are cultivated to any extent, and confine the present slave population within the limits of that county. Such is the rapid natural increase of the slaves, and the rapid exhaustion of the soil in the cultivation of those crops (which add so much to the commercial wealth of the country), that in a few years it would be impossible to sup port them within the limits of such county. Both master and slave would be starved out ; and what would be the practical effect in any one county, the same result would happen to all the slaveholding States. Slavery cannot be confined within certain specified limits without producing the destruction of both master and slave ; it requires fresh lands, plenty of wood and water, not only for the comfort and happiness of the slave, but for the benefit of the owner."* It is further important to observe that the intern al organization of slave societies adapts them in a peculiar manner for a career of constant expansion. " In free communities property becomes fixed in edifices, in machinery, and in improvements of the soil. In slave communities there is scarcely any property except slaves, and they are easily movable. The freeman embellishes his home ; the slaveholder finds nothing to bind him to soils which he has * Progress of Slavery, p. 227. THEIR EXCLUSIVENESS. 1 53 exhausted. Freedom is enterprising, but not mi gratory as slavery is. It is not in the nature of slavery to become attached to place. It is nomadic. The slaveholder leaves his impoverished fields with as little reluctance as the ancient Scythian aband oned cropped pastures for fresh ones, and slaves are moved as readily as flocks and herds."* Slavery thus requires for its success a constantly expanding field. It is also to be noted that within this field it is exclusive of all other industrial sys tems. It is true, indeed, that there exists in certain districts through the Slave States a considerable free population engaged in regular industry ; but this forms no real exception to the essential exclu- siveness of slave societies. These settlements of free farmers occur only where, from some cause, slavery has disappeared from tracts of country large enough to form the abode of distinct societies ; as in West ern Virginia, where the exhaustion of the soil, under a long continued cultivation by slaves, compelled at one time an extensive emigration of planters ; or along the slopes of the Alleghanies, where the land is better suited to cereal crops than to cotton or tobacco ; or, again, in Texas, where the available slave force has not been sufficient to enable planters to appropriate the vast regions suddenly placed at their disposal. In these cases, no doubt, colonies of * Progress of Slavery, p. 8. 154 THE RACE OF COLONIZATION. free peasants are to be found in the midst of the Slave States ; but there is here no real intermixture of the two forms of society. The free settlements remain in the Slave States as distinct communi ties* — oases of freedom in the vast desert of sla very — without bond of interest or sympathy to con nect them with the surrounding population. Slave society is thus essentially exclusive of all other forms of social life.f Now this characteristic of it is as well understood by the free population of the Northern States, as is the necessity to their system of a constantly expanding area by the planters of the South ; and hence it has happened that, when ever free and slave societies have come into contact on the same field, a mutiial antagonism has sprung up between them. Each has endeavoured to out strip the other in the career of colonization, and, by first occupying the ground, to keep the field open for its future expansion against the encroachments of its rival. " It has thus," says Mr. Weston, " be- * See Olmsted's account of the German settlement in Texas. — A Journey through Texas, pp. 143-146, 176-178. f This is not only instinctively felt by the Southerns, but main tained in theory. The following passage from the Richmond Inquirer is sufficiently explicit : " Two opposite and conflicting forms of society cannot, among civilized men, co-exist and endure. The one must give way and cease to exist ; the other become uni versal. If free society be unnatural, immoral, unchristian, it must fall, and give way to slave society, a social system old as the world, universal as man." MORAL TRAINING OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 155 come a race whether the negro from Texas and Arkansas, or the white labourer from Kansas and the free West, shall first reach New Mexico and the Gulf of California." But it is less in the economic, than in the moral and social, attributes of slave societies that we must look for the motive principle of their aggressive ambition. That which the necessity for fresh soils is to the political economy of such communities a lust of power is to their morality. The slaveholder lives from infancy in an atmosphere of despotism. He sees around him none but abject creatures, who, under fearful penalties to be inflicted by himself, are bound to do his slightest, his most unreasonable, bidding. " The commerce between master and slave," says a slaveowner, "is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions — the most unremitting des potism on the one hand, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. ... The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped with its odious peculiarities."* "The first notion," says De Tocqueville, " which the citizen of the Southern States acquires in life, is that he is born * Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, p. 39. 156 TENDENCY TO FOSTER AMBITION. to command, and the first habit which he contracts is that of being obeyed without resistance." The despot mood is thus early impressed on the heart of the slaveholder ; and it bears fruit in his manners and life. " The existence of a dominant class neces sarily leads to violence. Trained up from youth to the unrestrained exercise of will, the superior race or class naturally becomes despotic, overbearing, and impatient. In their intercourse with their inferiors this leads to unresisted oppression ; but with their equals, armed with similar power and fired by the same passions, it breaks out into fierce strife. . . . In this country the relation of master and slave produces the same effect on the character of the dominant class as was formerly produced in Europe by that of lord and serf. There is the same imperi ous will, the same impatience of restraint, the same proneness to anger and ferocious strife. The passions which are developed in the intercourse with inferiors show themselves, though in a different form, in the intercourse with equals. Thus, by an inevitable retribution, wrong is made self-chastising, and the hand of the violent man is turned against himself. " Duelling is not the only form of this national proneness to acts of violence ; rather, it is the modified form which it assumes among fair and honourable men, who, even in their anger, disdain to take advan tage of an adversary, and who have at least sufficient NARROW SCOPE FOR ITS INDULGENCE. self-command to give a semblance of reason to their passion. There are others, whose hasty impulses disdain even this slight self-restraint, who carry with them habitually the means of deadly injury, and use them on the slightest provocation." ..." The custom of carrying arms is at once a proof of proneness to violence, and a provocation to it. This habit, I am informed, prevails very extensively in the South. When coming down the Mississippi, a Colonel B , to whom I had been introduced, pointing to a crowd of men of all ranks clustered round the cabin stove, said : ; Now, there is probably not a man in all that crowd who is not armed ; I myself have a pistol in my state-room.' "* Such are the private influences by which the slaveholder is moulded to an intense craving for power. And what scope do the institutions of the South provide for the satisfaction, on a large theatre, of the passion which they generate? In free societies the paths to eminence are various. Successful trade, the professions, science and literature, social reform, philanthropy, furnish employment for the redundant activity of the people, and open so many avenues to distinction. But for slaveholders these means of advancement do not exist. Commerce and manufac tures are excluded by the necessities of the case. The professions, which are the result of much sub- * Stirling's Letters from the Slave States, pp. 270, 272. 158 SLAVERY ITS SOLE RESOURCE. division of employment where population is rich and dense, can have no place in a poor and thinly peopled country. Science and literature are left without the principal inducements for their cultiva tion, where there is no field for their most important practical applications. Social reform and philan thropy would be out of place in a country where human chattels are the principal property. Practi cally, but one career lies open to the Southerner desirous of advancement — agriculture carried on by slaves. To this, therefore, he turns. In the manage ment of his plantation, in the breeding, buying, and selling of slaves, his life is passed. Amid the moral atmosphere which this mode of life engenders his ideas and tastes are formed. He has no notion of ease, independence, happiness, where slavery is not found. Is it strange, then, that his ambition should connect itself with the institution around which are entwined his domestic associations, which is identified with all his plans in life, and which offers him the sole chance of emerging from obscurity ? But the aspirations of the slaveholder are not con fined within the limits of his own community. He is also a citizen of the United States. In the former he naturally and easily takes the leading place ; but, as a member of the larger society in which he is called upon to act in combination with men who have been brought up under free institutions, the CONCENTRATION OF AIM. 159 position which he is destined to fill is not so clearly indicated. It is plain, however, that he cannot become blended in the general mass of the popula tion of the Union. His character, habits, and aims are not those of the Northern people, nor are theirs his. The Northerner is a merchant, a manufacturer, a lawyer, a literary man, an artisan, a shopkeeper, a schoolmaster, a peasant farmer ; he is engaged in commercial speculation, or in promoting social or political reform ; perhaps he is a philanthropist, and includes slavery-abolition in his programme. Be tween such men and the slaveholder of the South there is no common basis for political action. There are no objects in promoting which he can combine with them in good faith and upon public grounds. There lies before him, therefore, but one alternative : he must stand by his fellows, and become powerful as the assertor and propagandist of slavery ; or fail ing this, he must submit to be of no account in the politics of the Union. Here then again the slave holder is thrown back upon his peculiar system as the sole means of satisfying the master passion of his life. In the society of the Union, no less than in that of the State, he finds that his single path to power lies through the maintenance and extension of this in stitution. Accordingly, to uphold it, to strengthen it, to provide for its future growth and indefinite expansion, becomes the dream of his life — the one l6o PROMOTED BY ANTAGONISM. great object of his existence. But this is not all : this same institution, which is the beginning and end of the slaveholder's being, places between him and the citizens of free societies a broad and impass able gulf. The system which is the foundation of his present existence and future hopes is by them denounced as sinful and inhuman ; and he is himself held up to the reprobation of mankind. The tongues and hands of all freemen are instinctively raised against him. A consciousness is thus awakened in the minds of the community of slaveholders that they are a proscribed class, that their position is one of antagonism to the whole civilized world ; and the feeling binds them together in the fastest con cord. Their pride is aroused ; and all the energy of their nature is exerted to make good their posi tion against those who would assail it. In this manner the instinct of self defence and the sentiment of pride come to aid the passion of ambition, and all tend to fix in the minds of slaveholders the resolu tion to maintain at all hazards the keystone of their social order. To establish their scheme of society on such broad and firm foundations that they may set at defiance the public opinion of free nations, and, in the last resort, resist the combined efforts of their physical power, becomes at length the settled purpose and clearly conceived design of the whole body. To this they devote themselves with the zeal POSITION OF THE SOUTH IN THE UNION. l6l of fanatics, with the persistency and secrecy of con spirators. The position of slaveholders thus naturally fosters the passion of ambition, and that passion inevitably connects itself with the maintenance and extension of slavery. Whether this ambition would find means to assert itself in the politics of the United States might at one time have seemed more than doubtful. From the very origin of the Republic there were causes in operation which threatened, if not vigorously encountered, to exclude the South from that influence which it aspired to attain. The institutions of the Union are based, in a large degree, on the principle of representation in proportion to numbers. But, as we saw on a former occasion, the social system of the Southern States is ill calculated to encourage the growth of population, while the institutions of the North peculiarly favour it. On the formation of the Federal Union the North and the South started in this respect upon nearly equal terms ;* and for a while — so long as slave trading with Africa was permitted — this equality was ap- * In 1 790 the numbers were respectively as follows : — Free States. Slave States. Whites ... 1,900,976 Whites ... 1,271,488 Free Blacks ... 27,102 Free Blacks ... 32>354 Slaves ... 40,364 Slaves ... 657,533 Total ... 1,968,452 Total ... 1,96 ',375 1 62, POSITION OF THE SOUTH IN THE UNION proxiinately maintained. But in 1808 the African slave trade was abolished ; and the principal ex ternal source on which the South relied for recruit ing its population was thus cut off. On the other hand, free emigration from Europe continued to pour into the Northern States in a constantly increasing stream ; while at the same time the natural increase of the Northern people, under the stimulus given to early marriages by the great industrial prosperity of the country, was rapid be yond precedent. From the influence of these causes, the original equality in numbers between North and South was soon converted into a decided preponder ance of the North ; and the natural course of events tended constantly to increase the disproportion. This state of things, it was obvious, threatened ultimately the political extinction of the South, incapable as it was of taking part in politics except as a distinct interest. At first view, indeed, it might seem as if this consummation was not merely ultimately inevitable, but imminent. In point of fact, however, the South, far from being reduced to political insignificance, has, throughout the whole period that has elapsed since the foundation of the government, maintained paramount sway in the councils of the Union. This result, so contrary to what one might at first sight have anticipated, it is the fashion to attribute NATURALLY INFERIOR TO THAT OF THE NORTH. 163 to superior capacity for politics among the Southern people ; and the theory certainly receives some countenance from the fact, that of the illustrious men who founded the republic some of the most eminent were furnished by the South. It is, however, quite unnecessary to resort to so improbable an hypo thesis, as that political capacity is best nourished by institutions which tend to barbarize the whole life, in order to understand the part taken by the South in the politics of the Union. The sufficient explana tion is to be found in two circumstances — in the nature of the Federal Constitution, regarded in con nexion with the singleness of aim and steadiness of purpose, which naturally characterize men whose interests and ideas are confined within the narrow range permitted by slave institutions. The Federal Constitution, as is well known, was a compromise between two principles — the democratic principle of representation in proportion to numbers, and the federal principle of representation according to states. In the Lower House of Congress — the House of Representatives — the former principle pre vailed ; the several states of the Union sending members to this assembly in proportion to the rela tive numbers of their population. In the Senate — the Upper House, — on the other hand, representation took place according to states — each state, without regard to extent or population, being there repre- 164 COMPENSATING FORCES : sented by the same number of senators. In the election of the President these two principles were combined, and the voting power of the several states was determined by adding to the number of their representatives in the Lower House the number of their representatives in the Senate — that is to say, by the proportion of members which each state respectively sent to both Houses. Such was the general character of the scheme.* In the arrangement, as thus stated, there would seem to be nothing which was not calculated to give to numbers, wealth, and intelligence, their due share in the government of the country. But in applying to the South the principles just described, a provision was introduced which had the effect of very materi ally altering, as regards that portion of the Union, the popular character of the Constitution. This was the clause enacting what is knowrn as the three- * The means by which it has been sought to preserve the balance between these two principles of the Constitution are thus briefly and comprehensively stated in the Federalist: — "The Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national ; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national ; in the operation of these powers it is national, not federal ; in the extent of them again it is federal, not national ; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national." — Story on the Constitution of the United States, vol. i., p. 199. THE THREE-FIFTHS VOTE. 165 fifths vote. The House of Eepresentatives professed to be based on the principle of representation in proportion to population ; but, by virtue of this clause, in reckoning population slaves were allowed to count in the proportion of five slaves to three free persons. Now, when we remember that the slaves of the South number four millions in a popu- lation of which the total is under ten millions, it is not difficult to perceive what must be the effect of such an arrangement upon the balance of forces under the Constitution. In the Presidential election of 1856, the slave representation was nearly equal to one-third of the whole Southern representation ; from which it appears that the influence of the South in the general representation of the Union was, in virtue of the three-fifths vote, nearly one-half greater than it would have been had the popular prin ciple of the Constitution been fairly carried out. But the influence of the South, as we formerly saw, merely means the influence of a few hundred thou sand slaveholders ; the whole political power of the Slave States being in practice monopolized by this body. The case, therefore, stands thus : under the local institutions of the Slave States, the slaveholding interest — a mere fraction in the whole population — predominates in the South ; while, under this provi sion of the Federal Constitution, the South acquires an influence in the Union by one-half greater than 1 66 SUPERIOR CAPACITY FOR COMBINED ACTION. legitimately belongs to it. It is true this would not enable the Southern States, while their aggregate population was inferior to that of the Northern, to command a majority in the Lower House by means of their own members. But we must remember that the South is a homogeneous body, having but one interest to promote and one policy to pursue ; while the interests and aims of the North are vari ous, and its councils consequently divided. " The selfish, single-purposed party," says Mr. Senior,* " to which general politics are indifferent, which is ready to ally itself to Free-traders or to Protectionists, to Reformers or to Anti-reformers, to Puseyites or to Dissenters, becomes powerful by becoming unscru pulous. If Ireland had been an independent coun try, separated from England, the Ultra-Catholic party, whose only object is the domination of the clergy and of the Pope, would have ruled her. This is the source of the influence of a similar party in France. The Clerical, or Jesuit, or Popish, or Ultramontane faction-— whatever name we give to it— has almost always obtained its selfish objects, because those objects are all that it cares for. It supported the Restoration, its priests blessed the insurgents of February, 1848, and it now worships Louis Napoleon. The only condition which it makes is ecclesiastical and Popish supremacy, and * Slavery in the United States, pp. 16, 17. EQUALITY CONVERTED INTO ASCENDANCY. 167 that condition the governor for the time being of France usually accepts. " Such a party is. the Southern party in the United States." Its single aim has been the consolidation and extension of slavery ; and to the accomplish ment of this end it has always been ready to sacri fice all other interests in the country, and, if neces sary, the integrity of the Union itself. We may see, then, in what consists the vaunted aptitude for poli tics exhibited by Southern men : it lies simply in the intense selfishness and utter absence of scruple with which they have persistently pushed their object. They have acted steadily together — a course for which no political virtue was necessary where there was but a single interest to promote, and that interest their own. They have contrived, by an un scrupulous use of an immense patronage, to detach from the array of their opponents a section suffi ciently large to turn the scale of divisions in their favour : — in other words, they have been successful practitioners in the art of political jobbery. Lastly, they have worked on the apprehensions and the patriotism of the country at large by the constantly repeated threat which they have now proved them selves capable of putting in force — of dissolving the Union.* * " Figurez-vous sur im vaisseau un honiine debout pres de la sainte-barbe, avec un meche allumee ; il est seul, niais on lui obeit, 1 68 DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE : The actual inferiority in population of the South ern to the Northern States, even under the peculiar advantage conferred by the three-fifths clause, ren dered it necessary that the slaveholders should pro cure an ally among the Northern people ; and this indispensable ally they found in the Democratic party. It has been frequently remarked upon with surprise that, in seeking a political connexion, the South — whose social and political system is intense ly aristocratic — should have attached itself to that party in the Union in which the democratic prin ciple has been carried to the greatest extreme. But the explanation is to be found in the circumstances of the case. The peculiarity of the industrial and social economy of the Southern States led them from the first to lean to the doctrine of state rights, as opposed to the pretensions of the central govern ment ; and the doctrine of state rights is a demo- car, a la premiere de'sobe'issance, il se fera sauter avec tout l'e"qui- page. Veil a precisement ce qui se passait en Amdrique depuis qu'elle allait a la derive. La manoeuvre dtait commandee par 1'homme qui tenait la nieche. ' A la premiere desobeissance, nous nous quittons.' Tel a e'te' de tout temps le langage des Etats du Sud. On les savait capables de tenir parole : aussi n'y avait-il plus qu'un argument en Amerique, la scission. ' Bevoquez le compro- mis, sinon la scission ; modifiez la legislation des Etats libres, sinoii la scission ; courez avec nous les aventures, et entreprenez des cou- quetes pour 1'esclavage, sinon la scission ; enfin, et par dessus tout, ne vous permettez jamais d'elire un president qui ne soit pas notre candidat, sinon la scission.' " — Un Grand People qui se releve, p. 37. ITS BASIS. 169 cratic doctrine. On this fundamental point, there fore, the principles of the Southern oligarchy and those of the Northern democracy were the same. But the alliance was not destitute of the cement of interest and feeling. The Democratic party had its principal seats in the great towns along the North ern seaboard ; and between the capitalists of these towns and the planters of the South the commercial connexion had always been close. Capital is much needed under a slave system, and is at the same time scarce. In the Northern cities it was abund ant. To the capitalists of the Northern cities, therefore, the planters in need of funds for carrying on their industry had recourse ; and a large amount of democratic capital came thus to be invested on the security of slave property. A community of interest was in this way established. But there was also a community of sentiment ; for the Northern cities had formerly been the great emporia of the African slave trade, and had never wholly aban doned the nefarious traffic ; and the tone of mind engendered by constant familiarity with slavery in its worst form naturally predisposed them to an alliance with slaveholders. Widely sundered, there fore, as were the Southern oligarchy and the Demo cratic party of the North in general political principle, there was enough in common between them to form the basis of a selfish bargain. A bar- 170 TERMS OF THE BARGAIN. gain, accordingly, was struck, of which the consider ation on the one side was the command of the Federal government for the extension of slavery, and, on the other, a share in the patronage of the Union. On these terms a coalition betAveen these two parties, so opposed in their general tendencies, has, almost from the foundation of the republic, been steadily maintained ; and in this way the South — vastly inferior though it has been to its competitor in wealth, population, and intelligence — in all the conditions to which political power at taches in well-ordered states — has, nevertheless, con trived to exercise a leading influence upon the policy of the Union. These considerations will suffice to explain how the South has been enabled, even when in a minor ity, to engage with success the representatives of the North. In the Lower House of Congress it has been always of necessity in this position ; repre sentation being here in proportion to population, in which, even including slaves, the South is inferior to its rival. But in the Upper House — the House which under the Constitution enjoys the most im portant prerogatives and the highest influence — the South has found itself at less disadvantage. In the Senate, as has been already stated, representation takes place according to states ; each state returning two members without regard either to the number TWOFOLD MOTIVE OF SOUTHERN AGGRESSION. 171 of its inhabitants or to the extent of its territory. To maintain itself, therefore, on an equal footing with the North in this assembly, the South had only need to keep the number of slave states on an equality with that of the free ; and this did not seem to be beyond its power. For, the tendency of slavery being to disperse population, a given num ber of people under a slave regime would naturally cover a larger space of country, and consequently would afford the materials for the creation of a greater number of states, than the same number under a regime of freedom. What, therefore, the South required to secure its predominance in the Senate, was a territory large enough for the creation of new slave states as fast as the exigencies of its politics might demand them. To keep open the territory of the Union for this purpose has, in con sequence, always been a capital object in the politics of the South ; and in this way a political has been added to the economic motive for extended territory. Two forces have thus been constantly urging on the Slave Power to territorial aggrandisement — the need for fresh soils, and the need for slave states. Of these the former — that which proceeds from its industrial requirements — is at once the most fun damental and the most imperative ; but it has not been that which, in the actual history of the United States, has been most frequently called into play. 172 THE POLITICAL MOTIVE MAINLY OPERATIVE. In point of fact, the political motive has in a great measure superseded the economic. The desire to obtain fresh territory for the creation of slave states, with a view to influence in the Senate, has carried the South in its career of aggression far beyond the range which its mere industrial necessi ties would have prescribed. Accordingly, for nearly quarter of a century — ever since the annexation of Texas — the territory at the disposal of the South has been very much greater than its available slave force has been able to cultivate ; and its most urgent need has now become, not more virgin soils on which to employ its slaves, but more slaves for the cultivation of its virgin soils. The important bear ing of this change on the views of the Slave Power will hereafter be pointed out : for the present, it is sufficient to call attention to the fact. A principle of aggressive activity, in addition to that which is involved in the industrial necessities of slavery, has thus been called into operation by the conditions under which the Slave Power is placed in the Senate. But we should here be careful not to overrate the influence exercised on that Power by its position in the Federal Union. It would, I con- ceive, be an entire mistake to suppose that this desire for extended territory, which, under actual circumstances, has shown itself in the creation of slave states with a view to influence in the Senate, TRUE SOURCE OF THIS MOTIVE. 173 is in any such sense the fruit of the position of the South in the Federal Union as that we should be justified in concluding that, in the event of the severance of the Union, the South would cease to desire an extension of its territory on political grounds. Such a view would, in my opinion, imply an entire misconception of the real nature of the forces which have been at work. The lust of dominion, which is the ruling passion of the Slave Power, is not accidental but inherent — has its source, not in the constitution of the Senate, but in the fundamental institution of the Slave States ; and the lust of dominion, existing in an embodied form in a new continent, cannot but find its issue in territorial aggrandisement. This by no means depends upon speculative inference. It admits of proof, as a mat ter of fact, that the projects of the South for extend ing its domain have never been more daring, and have never been pushed with greater energy, than during the last five years* — the very period in which the Southern leaders have been maturing their plans for seceding from the Union. The Federal con nexion may have facilitated the ambitious aims of the South while the Federal government was in its hands, but, far from being the source of its ambition, it is because it offers, under the changed conditions, * See Reports of the American Anti-slavery Society for the years 1859 and 1860. 174 RELATION OF THE POLITICAL MOTIVE impediments to the expanding views of the more aspiring minds of the South, that the attempt is now made to break loose from Federal ties. Extended dominion is in truth the very purpose for which the South has engaged in the present struggle ; and the thought which now sustains it through its fiery ordeal is (to borrow the words of the ablest advocate of the Southern cause) the prospect of " an empire in the future . . . extending from the home of Washington to the ancient palaces of Montezuma — uniting the proud old colonies of England with Spain's richest and most romantic dominions — combining the productions of the great valley of the Mississippi with the mineral riches, the magical beauty, the volcanic grandeur of Mexico."* In plain terms, the stake for which the South now plays is Mexico and the intervening Territories. * Spence's American Union, p. 286. Here for a moment the genius of the South is revealed in naked majesty. It is but for a moment. A few pages further on (p. 291) the scene changes, and the South is restored to its proper role. We have presented to us the aspect of a people spurning the idea of conquest, bounding its aspirations to the lowest requirement of free men — the demand for autonomy : — " Be our ignorance of the merits of this question ever so great, we behold a country of vast extent and large numbers earnestly desiring self-government. It threatens none, demands nothing, attacks no one, but wishes to rule itself, and desires to be 1 let alone.' " " Amphora coepit Institui ; currente rota cur urceus exit T TO THE FEDERAL POSITION- OF THE SOUTH. 175 The position of the Slave Power in the Union has thus determined the mode, not supplied the principle, of its aggressive action. It has brought out into more distinct consciousness, and presented in a more definite shape, the connexion between the ruling passion of the Slave Power and the natural means for its gratification. But the passion and the means for its gratification were there independently of the political system of the United States ; and the Slave Power, with a vast unoccupied or half-peopled terri tory around it, could not have failed under any circumstances, in the Union or out of it, to find in the appropriation of that territory its natural career. i76 CHAPTER VII. THE CAREER OF THE SLAVE POWER. THE aggressive ambition of the Southern States has been traced in the last chapter to two principles — the economic necessities forced upon them by the character of their industrial system, and the growth of passions and habits, generated by the presence of slavery, which require for their satisfaction political predominance. In the present chapter I propose to show how these two principles have operated in the actual history of the United States. At the time of the establishment of the Federal Union the position of slavery in North America was that of an exceptional and declining institution. Many circumstances conspired to produce this re sult. The war of independence had kindled among the people a spirit of liberty which was strongly antagonistic to compulsory bondage. In the leaders of the revolt this spirit burned with peculiar inten sity ; and though many of them were natives of the South and slaveholders, they were almost to a man opposed to the system, and anxious for its abolition. From the Northern States, where slavery had origi nally been planted, it was rapidly disappearing. In POSITION OF SLAVERY AT THE REVOLUTION. 177 the unsettled territory then at the disposal of the central government — notwithstanding that this terri tory had been ceded to it by a slave state — the institution was by an ordinance of the central government proscribed. Economic causes were also tending to its overthrow. The crops which are adapted to slave-cultivation are, as we have seen, few in number. Those which at this time formed the principal staples of the slave states of the Union were rice, indigo, and tobacco. The last, was al ready produced in quantities more than sufficient for the market ; and in the two former India was rapidly supplanting the United States. Sugar was not yet grown in the Union. Cotton was still an unimportant crop. But it happened that about this time several causes came into operation, which in their effect completely reversed the direction of events, drove back the tide of freedom, and gave to slavery a new vitality and an enlarged career. It was now that the steam engine, having undergone the improvements of Watt, was first applied on a large scale to manufacturing industry. Contemporane ously the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton in cotton spinning had been made. But these inventions, momentous as they were, would have failed in great part of their effect, had they not been supplemented by another — the invention of the saw-gin by Whitney. Previously to this invention 178 RISE OF THE COTTON TRADE. the only cotton grown in America, which was avail able for the general purposes of commerce, was that which was known as the Sea Island kind. This was long-fibred and only grew in a few favoured localities. The bulk of the cotton crop consisted of the short-fibred varieties, but the difficulty of sepa rating the seed from the wool in this species of the plant by the methods then in use, was so great as to render it for the ordinary purposes of cotton manu facture of little value. It was to overcome this diificulty that Whitney addressed himself ; and the success of his invention was so complete, that the whole American crop came at once into general demand. At the same time, while these causes were conducing to a great increase in the general consumption of cotton, a vast territory, eminently adapted for the cultivation as well of this as of most other slave products, came into the possession of the United States. The combined effect of all these occurrences was to give an extraordinary im pulse to the cultivation of cotton, and cotton being pre-eminently a slave product, and moreover only suited to those districts of the United States where slavery was already established, this was followed by a corresponding extension of slavery. In a few years after Whitney's invention, the exports of cot ton from the United States were decupled ; by the year 1810, they had been multiplied more than a EARLY PROGRESS OF THE PLANTERS. 179 hundredfold, and, from being a product of small account, cotton rapidly rose to be the principal staple of the Southern States. The early progress of the Southern planters, under the stimulus thus given to their enterprise, attracted little observation. To the west of the original slave states — Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia — lay extensive districts still unsettled, well suited for cultivation by slave labour, and too far removed from the Free States to be sought as a field for free colonization. Over these regions the planters rapidly spread themselves. But in 1804 an im mense range of country was gained to the United States by purchase from France, which, including some of the richest portions of the valley of the Mississippi, from its junction with the Missouri to its mouth, offered equal attractions to settlers from both divisions of the Union. This was the Territory of Louisiana, out of which the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas have since been formed ; and it was here that the rival pretensions of the two systems of freedom and slavery first came into collision. The Territory thus acquired stood, in its relations to the Federal government, on precisely the same footing with a large district known as the North- Western Territory, which had at an earlier period, by cession from Virginia, come into possession of l8o ACQUISITION OF THE LOUISIANA TERRITORY. the United States. The government of this Terri tory had been provided for by a celebrated instru ment — the ordinance of 1787 — enacted by Congress while yet constituted under the Articles of Confed eration, and by this instrument involuntary servi tude, except in punishment of crime, was prohibited within the Territory. It has been questioned whether, in issuing this ordinance while still under the Articles of Confederation, Congress did not exceed its proper powers.* The question is, how ever, curious rather than important ; for in framing the Constitution of the United States an article was introduced to provide for this very case. By this article it was enacted that " Congress should have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting, the Territory or other pro perty belonging to the United States." There could, therefore, be no doubt as to the competency of Con gress, under the Constitution, to legislate for the Territories; and there was, consequently, no legal barrier to applying to the new acquisition obtained from France the same rule which had by the ordi nance of 1787 been applied to the North- Western Territory. There were, however, practical diffi culties in the way. Slave institutions were already existing in some portions of the Territory of Louis- * The Federalist, No. 38. See Story on The Constitution of the United States, vol. i. p. 184. MISSOURI CLAIMED AS A SLAVE STATE. l8l iana ; and when the occasion arose for providing for the government of the remainder, it happened that the attention of the North was fully occupied with its foreign relations ; for this was the time when those negotiations with England were in pro gress which resulted in the war of 1812. These cir cumstances were favourable to the advances of the Slave Power. From the basis of operations supplied by the French slave colony at the mouth of the Mississippi the planters rapidly carried their insti tution along the western bank of that river. By degrees they reached the district which now forms the State of Missouri, and by the year 1818 had acquired there so firm a footing as to be enabled to claim for it admission into the Union as a slave state. The admission of Missouri to the Union forms for many reasons an epoch in the grand struggle be tween free and slave labour in North America. It was on this occasion that both parties appear first to have become sensible of the inherent antagonism of their respective positions, arid .to have put forth their whole strength in mutual opposition. The contest was carried on with extraordinary violence, and was terminated by a compromise, which was long considered in the light of a national compact irrevocably binding on the combatants on both sides. The occasion being of this importance, it is I 82 MOTIVES TO TERRITORIAL AGGRANDISEMENT. desirable that we should appreciate with as much precision as possible the stake which was at issue, and the motives which animated the contending parties. And here, though at the risk of wearying the reader, it may be well once more to repeat that the aggressive character of the Slave Power has been traced to two principles — the one economic, proceed ing from the necessity to slavery of a constant sup ply of fresh soils ; the other political, having its roots in that passion for power which the position of slaveholders — as a dominant race, isolated from their equals, and shut out from the pursuits which distribute the energies of free communities into va rious channels — inevitably engenders. Again, it has been seen that this latter principle, under the Constitution of the United States, exerts itself chiefly in the effort to increase Southern repre sentation in the Senate through the creation of new slave states. Lastly, it has appeared that the system of society which slavery produces is in its nature an exclusive system — its presence acting as a cause of repulsion towards free societies — and that, consequently, when these two forms of society come into contact on the same territory, an ine vitable antagonism springs up between them, an antagonism which displays itself in the efforts which they make to outstrip each other in a race of coloni- IMPORTANCE OF MISSOURI. 183 zation, each side endeavouring by prior occupation of the soil to exclude its rival and keep open for itself a field for future growth. These being the principles which governed the conflicting interests, we shall find that the stake which was at issue in the Missouri controversy was well calculated to call them actively into play. The position of Missouri is one of the most com manding in the central portion of North America. Possessing great agricultural and mineral resources, it is watered by two of the noblest rivers in the con- tinent— the Mississippi and the Missouri. It is in the direct line of movement westward from the Free States. If established as a free state, it would be come a centre of colonization for the North, from which free labour would pour along the valleys of the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Arkansas, and thence to Northern Texas. On the other hand, if occupied by slave institutions, it would cut off the natural expansion of the Free States, and turn the stream of free emigration in the direction of the north-west—to less fertile and less genial regions. But the political consequences depending upon the settlement of this question were not less momentous than the industrial and social. When the proposal for the admission of Missouri was first brought be fore Congress, the Free and the Slave States were 184 OPPOSITION OF THE NORTH. exactly equal in number. The admission of Mis souri as a slave state would just turn the scale in favour of the South, and, by consequence, give it a superiority in the Senate — a superiority, which, in conjunction with the advantages it possessed in the Lower House in virtue of its capacity for com bined action, could scarcely fail to render it the paramount power in the Union. The success of the South, moreover, in this instance, owing to the commanding geographical position of Missouri, would open for it the path to future conquests ; for, by diverting the stream of Northern emigra tion to the north-west, it would secure for the future use of the Slave Power the vast reach of fertile territory lying between that state and Texas — an area which comprised some of the richest and best watered lands within the domain of the Re public. The terms, therefore, on which Missouri should be admitted to the Union became a question of prime importance, in connexion with the pre sent and future interests of slave and free institu tions on the continent of North America. Accordingly, no sooner was the proposition raised for the admission of Missouri to the Union than the North rose energetically against the demand, and a violent political contest ensued. It lasted for nearly three years, and was terminated by the celebrated Compromise which has become a ]andmark in Ame- THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 185 rican history. Under this settlement Missouri was received into the Union as a slave state, on the con dition that in future slavery should not be carried north of the parallel 36° 30' of north latitude. In all essential respects this was a victory for the slave holders. They obtained all that they then desired — the most commanding position in central Ame rica, a path to future conquests, a recognised footing in the Territory of the Union ; and in return for this they gave but a naked promise, to be fulfilled at a future time, and which could be revoked as easily as it was given. Their triumph was slightly qualified by the admission about the same time of Maine as a free state, but it was sufficiently complete, and it entailed all the consequences which might have been, and which were, foreseen to be involved in it. From the passing of the Missouri Compromise down to the Presidential election of 1860 the predomi nance of the Slave Power in the politics of the Union has suffered no effectual check. The episode of the Seminole war — the next pro minent scene in which the Slave Power figured — though sufficiently costly and humiliating to the United States, need not detain us here at any length. It was little more than a protracted slave-hunt, car ried on with circumstances of more than usual cruelty, by means of the forces of the Union, against the Indians of Florida to whom a multitude of 1 86 THE SEMINOLE WAR. slaves had escaped. In this war Oceola, the cele brated Indian chief, was treacherously captured by two American generals, while " holding a talk " with them. In this war also the soldiers of the Union allowed themselves to be disgraced by co-operating with bloodhounds, imported for the purpose from Cuba, in hunting down the Indians. The general who commanded the Union forces in this ignoble service, and who is said to have lent his sanction to these atrocities, was General Zachary Taylor, after wards rewarded for his zeal in the cause of the Slave Power by elevation to the Presidency. The war lasted seven years, cost the country, it is estimated, 40,000,000 dollars, and resulted in the capture of a few hundred slaves. If the Seminole war led to no important results, it was far otherwise with the annexation of Texas. This transaction has long passed into a byeword for unprovoked and unscrupulous plunder of a weak by a strong power. The designs of its authors have always been notorious. Still, as affording a typical example of a mode of aggression which has since been frequently employed and is probably not yet obsolete, it may be well to recall some of its leading incidents at the present time. Texas, as all the world knows, was before its annexation to the Union a province of Mexico — a country at peace with the Union, and anxious DESIGNS UPON TEXAS. 187 to cultivate with it friendly relations. Mexico, however, was a weak state, still fresh from the throes of revolution. The district in question was one of great fertility, possessing in this respect, as well as in its climate and river communications, remarkable advantages for slave settlement : it was, moreover, but very thinly peopled, and was separated by an immense distance from the seat of govern ment. So early as 1821, while Spanish authority was still maintained in Mexico, three hundred fami lies from Louisiana were permitted to settle in this tempting region, under the express condition that they should submit to the laws of the country. By this means a footing was obtained in the district. The original immigrants were in time followed by others, who like their predecessors undertook to conform to the laws of Mexico ; and for some years the proceedings of the new settlers were conducted with proper respect for the authority of the state in which they had taken up their abode. But this aspect of affairs did not long continue. As the colony increased in numbers and wealth, it became evident to the slaveowners of the neighbouring states that they had a " natural right " to the territory. It offered an admirable field for slave cultivation ; it was in their immediate proximity ; of all claimants they were the strongest and " smart est : " in short, they wanted the country, and felt 1 88 METHOD OF PROCEEDING. themselves able to take it ; and they resolved it should be theirs. "Manifest destiny" beckoned them forward, and they prepared, with reverent sub mission to the decrees of Providence, to fulfil their fate. The agency by which the annexationists proceeded to give effect to their natural right was land specu lation. Grants of extensive districts were corruptly obtained from local bodies which had no competency to make them ; these were made the basis for a creation of scrip, which was thrown in large quanti ties upon the markets of the United States. To give an idea of the scale on which these transactions were carried on, one grant, obtained from the legislature of Coahuila, conveyed in perpetuity to American citizens, in direct violation of the laws of Mexico, no less than four hundred square leagues of the public land — an area as large as Lancashire — for a consideration of 20,000 dollars ! In addition to transactions of this kind, a manufacture of titles purely fictitious was freely carried on. By this means great numbers of the people in the United States became the possessors of nominal titles to land in Texas — titles, which, being of course unre cognized by the central authority in Mexico, could only be substantiated by setting aside that authority. " Texan independence could alone legalize the mighty frauds of the land speculators. Texas must VIEWS OF THE ANNEX ATIONISTS. 189 be wrested from the country to which she owed allegiance, that her soil might pass into the hands of cheating and cheated foreigners." But the motive of rapacity was reinforced by a stronger one. Mexico from the moment of her independence had shewn a creditable determination to uphold the most essential of human rights. By a law, passed shortly after her severance from Spain, slavery was abolished in her dominions, and pro hibited for all future time. Such a law was far from being in keeping with the views of the new settlers. Accordingly, they proceeded to evade it by various artifices. The most usual expedient was that of introducing slaves into the country under the guise of apprentices, the term of whose service commonly extended to ninety-nine years. On the point, however, of maintaining freedom of labour in their dominions, the Mexican authorities were in earnest, and the move of the settlers was met by a decree of the legislatures of Coahuila and Texas, annulling all indentures of labour for a longer period than ten years, and providing for the freedom of children born during apprenticeship. But slave holders were not to be so baffled. " The settled invincible purpose of Mexico to exclude slavery from her limits created as strong a purpose to annihilate her authority. The project of dismem bering a neighbouring republic that slaveholders 19° TEXAS ANNEXED. and slaves might overspread a region which had been consecrated to a free population, was discussed in the newspapers as coolly as if it were a matter of obvious right and unquestioned humanity."* The plot having been carried to this point, the consum mation of the plunder was easy. A conspiracy was hatched ; a rebellion organized ; filibusters were introduced from the border states ; and a popula tion, which at the commencement of the outbreak did not number twenty thousand persons, asserted its independence, was recognized by the Federal Government, and with little delay annexed to the Union. The annexation of Texas was too successful a stroke of policy not to be regarded as a precedent. It was accordingly followed by the Mexican war of 1846, which resulted in an easy victory over an unequal antagonist. By the treaty concluded between the United States and Mexico in 1848, the immense range of country, extending from Texas to the Pacific in one direction, and from the present frontier of Mexico to the Territory of Oregon in the other, and including the magnificent prize of Cali fornia, was added to the domain of the Republic. The disposal of this opulent spoil became at once a subject of overwhelming interest, and for two years the Union was shaken by the contests which it pro- * Charming5 s "Works, Letter on Texas. MEXICAN WAR — DIVISION OF THE SPOIL. 1 9 I duced. The point on which the immediate interest centred was California. Was it to be a free or a slave state ? The Southern party which had forced on the war had no other intention than to appro, priate this, its richest fruit ; but the discovery of gold in the alluvial sands of the Sacramento, just at the time when the annexation was accomplished, had attracted thither from the North a large pre ponderance of free settlers, and these pronounced loudly for free institutions. The question was settled, as so many similar questions had been settled, by a compromise. The Slave party con sented to waive its claim, but not without stipu lating for a concession in return. The admission of California as a free state was purchased by the Fugitive Slave Law.* The price was a shameful one ; yet it seems certain that this transaction forms an exception to the ordinary course of dealing be tween the Slave Power and its opponents, and that in the event the balance of advantage lay largely with the Free States. The Fugitive Slave Law has been for the Slave Power a questionable gain. Amongst its first fruits was Uncle Tom's Cabin. On the other hand, the acquisition of California has been a solid advantage for the free party. A free * To which the opponents of slavery contrived to add a bill for the exclusion of the slave market from the District of Columbia. The same series of measures also included bills for the settlement of the Territories of Utah and New Mexico. 192 STATE OF PARTIES IN 1850. state has thus been established in the rear of the Slave Power, a centre henceforward for free immi gration, and probably destined at no distant time to play an important part in the struggle between the rival principles. Thus, by the accident of a gold discovery, the well laid plans of the Slave party were frustrated, and a war which was undertaken by slaveholders in the interest of slavery has eventuated in a serious blow to their power. The differences arising out of the conquests made in the Mexican war having been adjusted by the compromises of 1850, the Slave Power was again at liberty to look around it and to meditate new acquisitions. The Territory which had fallen to slavery under the Missouri Compromise had now been appropriated ; Florida had also been acquired ; Texas had been annexed ; New Mexico lay open, but for the present it was too distant for settlement, and the numerous tribes of Indians which inhabited it made it an undesirable abode for slaveholders, whose experience in Florida naturally rendered them averse to such neighbours. But the territory of Kansas and Nebraska was comparatively close at hand, and was inviting from its fertility and salubrity. On political grounds, moreover, there was need that the Slave Power should bestir itself. The occasion was not unlike that which had pre ceded the admission of Missouri to the Union. From DESIGNS UPON KANSAS. 193 the passing of the Missouri Compromise down to the year 1850 the balance between the Free and Slave States had been fairly preserved. The North had during that time acquired Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin ; the South, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas ; the natural expansion of the one section had been steadily counterpoised by the factitious annexations effected by the other. But the admission of Cali fornia as a free state had disturbed this equili brium. To restore it there was need of a new slave state ; and where could this be more con veniently placed than in the rich contiguous Ter ritory of Kansas ? But to the realization of this scheme there was an obstacle in the way. The Territory of Kansas was part of the great tract obtained by purchase from France in 1804, and being north of the line traced by the Missouri Compromise, was therefore by the terms of that measure withdrawn from the field of slave set tlement. Now, the Missouri Compromise was some thing more than an ordinary legislative act. It was a compact between two great opposing interests, in virtue of which one of those interests obtained at the time valuable consideration on the condition of ab staining from certain pretensions in the future. It was, moreover, eminently a slaveholders' measure. " It was first brought forward by a slaveholder — vin- 194 OBSTRUCTED BY THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. dicated by slaveholders in debate — finally sanctioned by slaveholding votes — also upheld at the time by the essential approbation of a slaveholding Presi dent, James Munroe, and his cabinet, of whom a majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Calhoun himself."* The measure was thus binding on the Slave Party by every consideration of honour and good faith. But honour and good faith have always proved frail bonds in restraining the ambition of the Slave Power. The Missouri Compromise had served its end. Under it the most commanding central position in the continent had been secured. Under it Arkansas had been added to the slave domain. There was nothing more to be gained by maintain ing it. The plea of unconstitutionality, therefore, — " like the plea of usury after the borrowed money has been enjoyed" — was set up. In passing the Missouri Compromise Congress was said to have ex ceeded its competence. It was not for it to " legis late " freedom or slavery into the Territories. This was a question to be determined by the inhabitants of those Territories, whose right it was to " regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." Ac cordingly, in 1854, a bill known as the Kansas and Nebraska Bill was introduced by Mr. Douglas, a Northern democrat and an aspirant to the Presi dency. By this bill the Missouri Compromise was * Simmer's Speech. THE KANSAS AND NEBRASKA BILL. 195 abrogated, and in its place a principle was estab lished, popularly known as that of "squatter sove reignty," by which it was resolved that the future settlement of the Territories should be determined. The principle is thus described in the words of the act : — " It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any state or territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." By this plausible measure — plausible because it appeared to extend to the settlement of the question of slavery the democratic principle which was acknowledged as the basis of the general government — the incon venient restraints of the Missouri Compromise were got rid of, and the ground was cleared for the opera tions of the Slave Power. Meanwhile, however, the North, aroused by the discussions which had taken place to a sense of the importance of the crisis, was preparing to try issues with its opponent on the ground which it had chosen. On the 3oth of May, 1854, the territory of Kansas was by Act of Congress thrown open to settlers ; and at once from all quarters of the Free States crowds of emigrants nocked to the debatable land. The work of settlement was pushed with character istic ardour. The land was rapidly cleared ; culti- 196 KANSAS THROWN OPEN FOR SETTLEMENT. vation was commenced; the foundations of towns were marked out: the whole country glowed with the bustle of colonizing activity. In a few months the free settlers had acquired a decided preponder ance over their rivals in the new territory ; and all things seemed to promise — the will of the inhabi tants being the arbiter of the question — that Kansas would ere long be peaceably enrolled in the Union as a Free State. But the Slave Power had other resources in store. It could not, and probably did not, hope to triumph on a fair field in a coloniza tion struggle with the North. In all the quali fications requisite for such a struggle the North was immeasurably its superior. It had at its disposal a vastly larger population, and this population, energetic, intelligent, and enterprising, was in all essential respects far better adapted to the work in hand than any which the South could bring against it. But it was not by fair means that the South hoped to attain its object. Kansas adjoined Mis souri. In Missouri, as in all the Slave States, there was a mean white population — a population utterly unfit for the work of colonization, but well qualified and well disposed to take part in any expedition which promised rapine and blood. It was on the services of this people that the Slave Power relied for the success of its scheme. It could not out- colonize the freesoilers from the North, but it PREPARATIONS OF THE SLAVE POWER. 197 could, it was hoped, make the territory too hot to hold them, and ultimately, being left master of the field, it might occupy it at leisure. This, however, was not its only resource. In the government at Washington it had a sure ally, which, though af fecting to disapprove, could be depended upon to connive at, and when necessary to sustain, its law less proceedings. Resting upon these supports, the Slave Power took its measures. It was necessary, in the first place, that a staff of functionaries should be appointed for the Kansas territory. Of these the nomination lay with the President, and needed to be confirmed by the Senate. But the President was the nominee of the South, and in the Senate the South was all powerful. There was, therefore, no difficulty in securing officials on whom the South could thoroughly rely. Meantime preparations were made for active operations. Bands of border ruf fians were mustered on the Missouri frontier, and held in leash to be let slip at the decisive moment. That moment at length arrived. On the 29th of November, 1854, the infant Territory was to elect a delegate to appear and speak in its behalf in the National Congress. On that day the myrmidons of slavery, led by experienced filibusters from the South, rushed upon the scene, seized by force upon the ballot-boxes, and crushed all free action among the inhabitants. On the 3oth of March following 198 INVASION OF THE TEKKITORY. the Territorial legislature was to be chosen. The invasion was repeated on a larger scale and with a more complete organization. Armed violence was now reduced to system. Again and again were these raids renewed with circumstances of ever-in creasing atrocity, turning the Constitution into a mockery — a pliant instrument in the hands of a reckless faction. Under these auspices the elections were held. The result was the return, by a popula tion of whom the great majority were freesoilers, of a pro-slavery delegate, the erection of a pro- slavery legislature, and the promulgation of a pro- slavery constitution. Some of the provisions of this strange instrument deserve to be recorded. Taking the laws of their own state as their model, the invaders, in the first place, re-enacted in the gross the code of Missouri. But more stringent measures than the Missourian code contained were required to meet the present emergency. Accordingly, all persons holding anti- slavery opinions were by a single stroke disfran chised. On the other hand — the object being to rule the territory through the armed rabble of Missouri — it was enacted that every one might vote, whether resident or not, who, holding opinions favourable to slavery, should pay one dollar on the day of election, and swear to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law and the Nebraska Bill. The ideas which THE LEAVENWORTH CONSTITUTION. 199 the Slave Power entertained on the subject of free dom of the press may be gathered from one enact ment, which provided that the advocacy of anti- slavery opinions should be treated as felony, and punished with imprisonment and hard labour ; while its notions of lenity are illustrated by its mode of dealing with the offence of facilitating the escape of slaves. Against this— of all crimes in the ethics of the Slave Power the most heinous — and against other modes of attacking slave property, the penalty of death was denounced no less than forty-eight different times. Such was the mild and liberal spirit of the Leaven, worth Constitution. Once promulgated, it became necessary to carry it into effect ; and the means adopted for this purpose were in keeping with all which had gone before. The country was given over to be dealt with by the invaders at their pleasure.* Gangs of these armed ruffians, making no pretence of being settlers, having no other means of support than pillage, patrolled the coun try, " preserving," so it was phrased in Congress, " law and order." The Federal functionaries, mean, while, looked on in silence, contenting themselves with ratifying the Constitution which had been passed ; while the Federal troops, by abstaining from all interference with the apostles of " order," * General statements fail to convey any idea of the atrocities 200 ATROCITIES OF THE BORDER RUFFIANS. and, when necessary, by overawing the disaffected, proved useful allies of the movement. By such means the Slave Power succeeded in establishing itself in Kansas ; but its reign was brief. The atrocities it had committed roused a spirit for which were committed. The following anecdote is told by Mr. Thomas K. Gladstone — an Englishman who visited Kansas dur ing the time of the disturbances — in his work entitled Kansas ; or Squatter Life and Border Warfare in the Far West : — "Individual instances of barbarity continued to occur almost daily. In one instance, a man, belonging to General Atchinson's camp, made a bet of six dollars against a pair of boots that he would go and return with an Abolitionist's scalp within two hours. . He went forth on horseback. Before he had gone two miles from Leavenworth on the road to Lawrence, he met a Mr. Hops, driving a buggy. Mr. Hops was a gentleman of high respectability, who had come home with his wife, a few days previously, to join her brother, the Eev. Mr. Nute of Boston, who had for some time been labouring as a minister in Lawrence. The ruffian asked Mr. Hops where he came from. He replied he was last from Lawrence. Enough ! The ruffian drew his revolver, and shot him through the head. As the body fell from the chaise, he dismounted, took his knife, scalped his victim, and then returned to Leavenworth, where, having won his boots, he paraded the streets with the bleeding scalp of the murdered man stuck upon a pole. This was on the ipth of August. Eight days later, when the widow, who had been left at Lawrence sick, was brought down by the Eev. Mr. Nute, in the hope of recovering the body of her murdered husband, the whole party, consisting of about twenty persons in five waggons, was seized, robbed of all they had, and placed in confinement. One was shot the next day for attempting to escape. The widow and one or two others were allowed to depart by steamer, but penniless. A German incautiously condemning the outrage was shot ; and an other saved his life only by precipitate flight.'' REACTION DEFEAT OF THE SLAVE POWER. 2OI which the South was not prepared. The settlers, finding themselves betrayed by the government which should have protected them, rose in arms. The injuries to which they had been exposed only fixed them in the resolution to defend the country which was rightly theirs ; and the story of their wrongs, being carried to the North, excited there a feeling which brought flocking to their assistance crowds of freemen. The efforts of the Slave party, though violent, were fitful ; those of the Free settlers were resolute and sustained. After a desultory civil war, the former was utterly defeated, the pro-slavery constitution was overthrown, and a free legislature and free institutions were established. Such was the result of the experiment of" squat ter sovereignty" in the Territories. After a long career of success, the South had at length been forced to give way, and to abandon a design which it had deliberately formed. But the defeat in Kansas was not an ordinary reverse. It could be attributed neither to remissness nor to fortune. The South had brought into action all its available strength, and the contest had been fought under conditions which it had itself prescribed. It had selected its own ground ; it had taken its opponents by surprise ; it had not hesitated to employ every means, legal and illegal, in the prosecution of its end ; in all its measures it had been powerfully sus- 202 ALARM IN THE NORTH. tained by the central government ; and yet, with all these advantages, it had been utterly defeated. The experiment was absolutely decisive ; and it was henceforth certain that, with the resources at pre sent at the disposal of the two parties, slaveholders were no match in the work of colonization for the freemen of the North. This was a serious result for a community for which territorial expansion was a necessity of pros perous existence. But the crisis assumed a still graver aspect from the movements of political par ties to which the events in Kansas led. These events brought home to the Northern people with irresistible force the real aims and character of the power to whose domination it had submitted. It was not simply that the South in Kansas sought to extend the area of slavery — this was a familiar fact ; it was that in prosecuting this object it had shown itself prepared to perpetrate any atrocity, any per fidy ; it w^as that, in promoting its ambitious schemes, it had turned with utter unscrupulousness those powers of government, with which it had been entrusted for the general good, to the pur pose of crushing the liberties and taking away the lives of those who dared to thwart it. A feeling of profound indignation, mingled with alarm, pervaded the people of the Free States. It was felt that the time had come when all who were not content to FORMATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 203 yield themselves up to the tender mercies of this unscrupulous and wicked Power should take mea sures for their safety. A strong reaction set in, and the earliest fruit of the reaction was the formation of the Kepublican party. The policy of this party was first given to the world by a manifesto issued in the summer of 1856. The Republican party, it was declared, had no pur pose to interfere with slavery in the states where it was already established. Within those limits it had been recognized by the Constitution, and to trans cend constitutional bounds was no part of the Re publican programme. But it was denied that the authority of Congress, or of any other power in the Union, so long as the present Constitution was maintained, could give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States. The fundamen tal principle of the party \vas thus the non-extension of slavery. Taking its stand on this ground, it invited the co-operation of all who were opposed to the dominion of the Slave Power, asking them to lay aside past political differences and divisions, and by one grand effort to rescue the country from the rule of the common foe.* This was in the summer of 1856. In the autumn of the same year the Presidential election gave occa- * See the Republican platform adopted at Philadelphia, June 1 8, 1856. 204 FIRST TRIAL OF STRENGTH OF THE NEW PARTY. sion for the first trial of strength between the new party and its opponents. The contest occurred Avithin a few months from the time when the first idea of a party on the basis indicated had been formed, and before its leaders had had time to complete its organization. As might have been expected, it was defeated, but under circumstances which inspired the strongest hope of ultimate vic tory. " The Eepublicans," said the central associ ation at Washington, addressing the country after the event of the election, " wherever able to present clearly to the public the real issues of the canvass — slavery restriction, or slavery extension — have car ried the people with them by unprecedented majori ties, almost breaking up in some States the organ ization of their adversaries." . . . . " Under circumstances so adverse, they have triumphed in eleven, if not twelve of the Free States, pre-eminent for enterprise and general intelligence, and contain ing one half of the whole population of the coun. try." ...-.." AVe know," continued this body, " the ambition, the necessities, the schemes of the Slave Power. The policy of extension, aggrandise ment, and universal empire is the law of its being, not an accident — is settled, not fluctuating. Covert or open, moderate or extreme, according to circum stances, it never changes in spirit or aim." . . . " The true course of the Republican party is to HOPEFUL PROSPECTS. 205 organize promptly, boldly, and honestly upon their own principles, and, avoiding coalitions with other parties, appeal directly to the masses of all parties to ignore all organizations and issues which would divert the public mind from the one danger that now threatens the honour and interests of the country, and the stability of the Union." The long ascendancy of the Slave Power in the Union was thus at length seriously threatened, and on its ascendancy depended its existence as a Power. The leaders of the South were not slow to appreci ate the critical nature of their position. With a boldness and practical sense characteristic of men long and successfully conversant with the affairs of government, they looked the danger in the face, and, perceiving that the emergency was one in which ordinary expedients would be unavailing, they resolved upon a policy of " Thorough ;" and, without hesitation or compunction, advanced straight to their object. The real cause of the defeat of the South in the Kansas struggle it was not difficult to discover. It lay in the want of a population adapted to the pur- pose in hand — slavery colonization. The South had conquered the ground, but, owing to the insuffi ciency of its slave force, it had been unable to hold it, and the result was its defeat. The remedy, therefore, was plain. It would be necessary to 206 SOUTHERN POLICY OF " THOROUGH." increase the slave force of the South in such a man ner as to put it on a par in point of disposable population with its Northern rival, and, meantime, pending the accomplishment of this result, to find means to maintain a footing in the Territories in spite of the legislation of the freesoilers. Such was the problem proposed to the South. Nothing short of this would enable the Slave Power to keep open the Territories for its future expansion, and to retain its hold on the Federal Government. No thing short of this would give it predominance in the Union. There was need, therefore, of " Tho rough." It resolved to give effect to this policy in in all its fulness, or, failing this, to dissolve the Union. With a view to the first point — the augmentation of the supply of slave labour — the obvious, and the only adequate, expedient was the reopening of the African Slave Trade. That trade had been prohi bited by an act of Congress in 1808, and the prohi bition had, up to the present time, been acquiesced in by all parties. But, like every other enactment which stood in the way of the freest development of slavery, this prohibition was now discovered to be 4 unconstitutional.' Congress had, it seemed, ex ceeded its proper powers in passing the act. It was, accordingly, determined that an agitation should forthwith be set on foot for its repeal. REVIVAL OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 207 The first blast of the trumpet announcing the new policy was sounded by Governor Adams of South Carolina in his address to the legislature of that state in 1857. The obnoxious prohibition was de nounced in vehement terms. It was a violation of the Constitution, and it interfered with the essential interests of the South. By the closing of the African slave trade the equilibrium between North and South had been destroyed, and this equilibrium could only be restored in one way — by the re opening of that trade. Let this once be accom plished — let the South have free access to the only labour market which is suited to her wants — and she has no rival whom she need fear. The key-note having been struck, the burden of the strain was taken up by other speakers, and the usual machinery of agitation was put in motion through the South. The Southern press freely dis cussed the scheme.* It was brought before the * The Charleston Standard, complaining that the position of the South had hitherto been too much one of defence and apology, adds, " To the end of changing our attitude in the contest, and of plant ing our standard right in the very faces of our adversaries, we propose, as a leading principle of Southern policy, to reopen and legitimate the slave trade." And it then proceeds, in a series of articles, to argue at length the rightfulness and expediency of this measure, expanding and elaborately enforcing the following pro positions, viz.: — " That equality of states is necessary to equality of power in the Senate of the Union ; that equality of population is necessary to equality of power in the House of Eepresentatives ; 208 AGITATION FOR REOrENING annual conventions for the consideration of South ern affairs, and received the energetic support of the leaders of the extreme Southern party.* At one of that we cannot expand our labour into the Territories without de creasing it in the States, and what is gained upon the frontier is lost at the centres of the institution ; that pauper white labour will not come into competition with our slaves, and, if it did, that it would not increase the integrity and strength of slavery, and that, there fore, to the equality of influence in the Federal legislature there is a necessity for the slave trade." * Mr. Yancey has denied this in a letter to the Daily News, and declared that he " does not know two public men in the South, of any note, who ever" advocated the restoration of the trade, and that " the people there are and have been almost unanimously opposed to it." It is unnecessary to reopen a question which has been dis posed of, and I therefore refer the reader, who wishes to ascertain the authenticity of Mr. Yancey's statement, to the Daily News of the 2/th and 28th January, 1862. One or two specimens, how ever, may be given of the views of Southern politicians upon this subject. The Hon. L. W. Spratt of Georgia, in a speech at Savan nah in favour of the African slave trade, thus expressed himself : — " The first reason for its revival is, it will give political power to the South. Imported slaves will increase our representation in the national legislature. More slaves will give us more states ; and it is, therefore, within the power of the rude untutored savages we bring from Africa to restore to the South the influence she has lost by the suppression of the trade. We want only that kind of popu lation which will extend and secure our peculiar institutions, and there is no other source but Africa." Mr. A. H. Stephens, the present Vice-president of the Southern Confederation, has thus pointedly put the argument for the opening of the trade : — " We can divide Texas into five slave states, and get Chihuahua, Sonora, &c. if we have the slave population, and it is plain that unless the number of African stock be increased, we have not the population, and might as well abandon the race with our THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 209 these conventions held at Vicksburgh, Mississippi in May, 1859, a vote 'm favour °f the reopening of the trade was passed by a large majority ; and this was followed up by the formation of an " African Labour Supply Association," of which Mr. De Bow, the editor of the leading Southern review, was the president. In Alabama, a " League of United South erners" issued a manifesto in which the Federal prohibition of the foreign slave trade is denounced as an unworthy concession to the demands of North ern fanaticism, and which insists on " the necessity of sustaining slavery, not only where its existence is put directly in issue, but where it is remotely con cerned." In Arkansas and Louisiana the subject brethren of the North in the colonization of the Territories . . . slave states cannot he made without Africans. I am not telling you to do it, hut it is a serious question concerning our political and domestic policy ; and it is useless to wage war ahout abstract rights, or to quarrel and accuse each other of unsoundness, unless we get more Africans Negro slavery is but in its infancy." And Mr. Jefferson Davis, while declaring his disapprobation of opening the trade in Mississippi, earnestly disclaimed " any coinci dence of opinion with those who prate of the inhumanity and sin- fulness of the trade. The interest of Mississippi, not of the African" he said, " dictates my conclusion. Her arm is, no doubt, strength ened by the presence of a due proportion of the servile caste, but it might be paralyzed by such an influx as would probably follow if the gates of the African slave-market were thrown open/' . . . " This conclusion, in relation to Mississippi, is based upon my view of her present condition, not upon any general theory. It is not supposed to be applicable to Texas, to New Mexico, or to any future acquisitions to be made south of the Rio Grande.'' 210 IMPORTATION OF SLAVES was brought before the state legislatures. A mo tion brought forward in the Senate of the former state, condemnatory of the agitation for the revival of the African slave trade, was defeated by a majority of twenty-tAVO. In the latter a bill em bodying the views of the advocates of the trade was passed successfully through the Lower House, and only by a narrow majority lost in the Senate. In Georgia the executive committee of an agricul tural society offered " a premium of twenty-five dol lars for the best specimen of a live African imported within the last twelve months, to be exhibited at the next meeting of the society." Nor was the principle of competition confined to the show yard. Southern notions would have been shocked if so solemn a work had missed the benediction of the church. Accordingly, it was proposed in the True Southern, a Mississippi paper, to stimulate the zeal of the pulpit by founding a prize for the best sermon in favour of free trade in human flesh. Meanwhile those who were immediately interested in the question had taken the law into their own hands, and the trade in slaves with Africa was actually commenced on a large scale. Throughout the years 1859 anc^ I$6o fleets of slavers arrived at Southern ports, and, with little interference from the Federal Government,* succeeded in landing * Not, however, it would seem, without interruption from the ACTUALLY COMMENCED. 2 I I their cargoes. The traffic was carried on with scarcely an attempt at concealment. Announce ments of the arrival of cargoes of Africans, and advertisements of their sale, appeared openly in the Southern papers ; and depots of newly imported " savages " were established in the principal towns of the South. " I have had ample evidences of the fact," said Mr. Underwood, a gentleman of known respectability, in a letter to the New York Tribune, " that the reopening of the African slave trade is already a thing commenced, and the traffic is brisk and ^rapidly increasing. In fact, the most vital question of the day is not the opening of the trade, but its suppression. The arrival of cargoes of negroes, fresh from Africa, in our Southern ports is an event of frequent occurrence."* One-half of the policy of "Thorough" was thus fairly inaugurated. But the process of augmenting a population is slow ; and, even on the supposition that the Federal prohibition of the external slave trade were removed, some years would elapse before the South could hope to renew, with any prospect of English cruisers. A correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce, writing from the coast of Africa, mentions the capture of no less than twenty-two vessels as having been effected by English cruisers in the summer and autumn of 1857. "All but one were American, and the larger number belonged to New York/' * Annual Eeports of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1857-8, 1858-9, 1859-60. 14* 212 PERVERSION OF THE CONSTITUTION. success, the colonization struggle with the freesoilers. During the interval the movements of the North must by some means be held in check ; the Territories must be kept open. It was necessary, therefore, to devise a principle of policy on which the party could act together with a view to this end : and for this purpose the South, according to its custom in similar emergencies, had recourse to the Constitution of the United States. True, the whole tenour of the Con stitution ran in an opposite direction. But the lead ers of the party did not despair. Though they might not find their favourite principle, totidem verbis, in the Constitution, nor yet, perhaps, toti dem syllabis, " they dared engage," like the book- learned brother in a like difficulty, " they should make it out tertio modo, or totidem literis"* It was beyond question that the Constitution had recognized the right of property in human beings. This could not be denied, and this was a sufficient basis for the policy of the South. The recognition, it is true, was partial and local, so admittedly so, that, even under the rule of the Slave party, the whole course of law and government had proceeded upon this assumption. The latest enactment, for example, bearing upon the question was the Kansas and Nebraska bill. This measure had been brought forward by a Democratic member acting in concert * Tale of a Tub. EQUAL RECOGNITION OF SLAVERY CLAIMED. 2 1 3 with the whole South, and had been carried against a vehement Northern opposition. Yet even this measure did not assume an equality between slavery and freedom under the Constitution ; for, while it left it open to the inhabitants of a Territory to pro. hibit slave labour therein, it permitted no corre sponding prohibition to be directed against free labour ; while it refused to recognize property in slaves under certain circumstances, and left such property unprotected by law, it contemplated no occasion on which other kinds of property should not receive recognition and protection. The very expression, " peculiar institution," showed the light in which slavery was popularly regarded. But the Slave party had now resolved neither to see nor to admit any of these qualifying considerations. It took its stand on the principle that the Constitution recognized the right of property in man ; and, refusing to acknowledge anything which did not harmonize with this, it reasoned with ruthless con sistency to the conclusion that Congress, which was the organ of the Constitution, was bound to protect this property in whatever part of the Union it might be found. The doctrine of " squatter sovereignty," which left it open to the inhabitants of a district to decide for or against slavery — albeit a doctrine fabricated to order, with a view to meet the special exigencies of the Slave Power — was therefore de- 214 PREREQUISITES OF THE NEW DOCTRINE. nounced as no less unconstitutional than the Missouri Compromise, as no less dangerous than the Wilmot Proviso. It was not for the people of a territory to say what property was to be protected, and what to be left without protection ; but it was for Congress, to which it belonged to give effect to the Constitu tion over the whole Union, to protect all property without distinction, whatever might be its nature, and in whatever part of the Union it might be placed — whether consisting of human or of other chattels, whether existing in the States or in the Territories, in the Slave States or in the Free. Such was the daring doctrine advanced by the leaders of the South in the critical position of their affairs at which they had now arrived. To make good their ground, they had need of two things; first, a judicial decision by the highest Federal au thority in their favour ; and secondly, a government at Washington prepared to supply the necessary ad ministrative machinery for giving full effect to this decision. The Supreme Court of the United States is the tribunal of ultimate appeal in constitutional questions. This court had for a long series of years been composed of the most eminent lawyers of the Republic, and had maintained a high character for learning and wisdom, as well as for the spirit of enlightened impartiality with which it discharged its high functions. But this court was now destined RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SUPREME COURT. 215 to suffer from the same causes which had aifected injuriously so many other institutions of the Union. The judges of the Federal courts were appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. In the Senate the Slave party was predominant, and it had hitherto been able to nominate the President. It had, therefore, the appointments to the national judicatory in its own hands ; and for some years — foreseeing that in the controversies which were pending it would be of importance to have the judicial bench on its side — it had been silently shap ing to its purposes this great organ of the nation's power. With such success had the process been carried on, that in 1855, although the North had always furnished by far the greatest share of legal talent and learning to the bar of the Union, out of the nine judges who constituted the Supreme Court of the United States, five were Southern men and slaveholders, and the rest, though not natives of the South, were known to be in their sympathies strongly Southern. The tribunal of ultimate appeal in the Union was thus brought to a condition which commended it to the confidence of the "thorough" politicians,* and before the court so constituted a * The following, which occurs in the judgment of Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case, will give the reader an idea of the spirit with which the court was animated. The question before the court was whether coloured persons are legally citizens of the 3l DRED SCOTT CASE. case was submitted for judgment, involving the prin ciple which it was desired to establish. This was the celebrated Dred Scott case. The facts of it are sufficiently simple. A slave of the name of Dred Scott had been carried by his master from Missouri, his native state, first to Illinois, a free state, and subsequently to the United States territory north of Missouri, which, under the Missouri Compromise, was free territory. On being brought back to Mis souri, the slave claimed his freedom on the ground that his removal by his master to a free state and territory had emancipated him ; and that, once free, he could not be enslaved by being brought again into a slave state. This demand was strictly in accordance with the prevailing course of decisions over the whole South up to that time ; and was United States. Chancellor Kent had laid it down in his Commen taries, that " it is certain that the Constitution and statute law of New York speak of men of colour as being citizens ;" and that " if a slave be born in the United States, and lawfully discharged from bondage, or if a black man be born free in the United States, he becomes thenceforth a citizen." But Chief Justice Taney contended that coloured persons were incapable of enjoying this privilege. " Such persons/' he said, " had been regarded as unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit ; that this opinion ivas, at that time, fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race, and was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute." EFFECT OF THE DECISION. 217 thus, in conformity with precedent, conceded by the state court of Missouri, before which it was in the first instance brought. But the defendant appealed against this decision, and the case came on under a writ of error first before the Supreme Court of the State, and ultimately, having in the interval passed through one of the circuit Federal courts, before the Supreme Court of the Union. The result was the reversal by a majority of the Supreme Court of the judgment of the court below. In announcing the decision, Chief Justice Taney, who delivered judgment, laid down two principles which went the full length of the views of the Slave party. He declared, first, that in contemplation of law there was no difference between a slave and any other kind of property ; and secondly, that all American citizens might settle with their property in any part of the Union in which they pleased. Such was the momentous decision in the Dred Scott case. Its effect was to reverse the fundamen tal assumption upon which up to that time society in the Union had been based ; and, whereas for merly freedom had been regarded as the rule and slavery the exception, to make slavery in future the rule of the Constitution. According to the law, as expounded by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, it was now competent to a slaveholder to carry his slaves not merely into any portion of the 2, 1 8 SECOND REQUIREMENT OF THE SLAVE POWER — Territories, but, if it pleased him, into any of the Free States, to establish himself with his slave reti nue in Ohio or Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania or New York, and to hold his slaves in bondage there, the regulations of Congress or the laws of the parti cular state to the contrary notwithstanding. The Union, if this doctrine were to be accepted, was henceforth a single slaveholding domain, in every part of which property in human beings was equally sacred. So sweeping were the consequences in volved in the Dred Scott decision. Reading that decision in the light of subsequent events, we can not but admire the sagacious foresight of De Tocque- ville : — " The President who exercises a limited power may err without causing great mischief in the state. Congress may decide amiss without de stroying the Union, because the electoral body in which Congress originates may cause it to retract its decision by changing its members. But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent men or bad citizens, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war." The Slave Power had thus accomplished its first object. The Constitution had been turned against itself, and, by an ingenious application of the " toti- dem literis " principle of interpretation, the right to extend slavery over the whole area of the Union was declared by the highest tribunal in the republic A RELIABLE GOVERNMENT. 219 to be good in constitutional law. But it was fur ther necessary to give practical effect to this deci sion ; and this could only be accomplished through a government at Washington favourable to the principle it embodied. It was therefore resolved that, in the approaching Presidential election, the party of the South should be reconstructed on the basis of this principle in its application to the Terri tories ; (for it was thought prudent for the present to abstain from extending the new doctrine to the Free States). This policy was, however, in the last degree hazardous. The South had hitherto carried its measures through an alliance with the Demo cratic party of the North ; but this party was now led by Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Douglas was the author of the Kansas and Nebraska bill, the repeal of which was for the moment the main object of the South. Mr. Douglas was, therefore, plainly told that he must recant his former principles — principles which, at the cost of much loss of credit among his North ern friends, he had devised expressly for the benefit of the Slave Power — and that he must make up his mind to uphold slavery in the Territories in spite of anti-slavery decisions by the squatter sovereignty, or forfeit the support of the South. Now this was a length to which Mr. Douglas and the section which he led— highly as they prized the Southern alliance, and indulgently and perhaps approvingly 220 BREACH WITH THE DEMOCRATS — SECESSION. as they regarded the institution of slavery — were not prepared to go.* Mr. Douglas was, therefore, cast aside. The combined phalanx which had so long ruled the Union was broken in two, and the Slave Power stood alone. This position of affairs could only lead to one result — that which actually occurred — the triumph by a large majority of the Republican party. The South having thus failed to make good the one alternative of its ' thorough ' policy, at once accepted the other ; and the dissolu* tion of the Union was proclaimed. * Yet every point was strained to meet the views of the South. The distinction between the programmes of the two sections as they were ultimately amended, is so fine that it may easily escape the inattentive reader. The essence of the demand of the extreme (Breckenridge) section was contained in the second of the amend ments made in the Cincinnati platform ; which was to the effect " That it is the duty of the Federal government, in all its depart ments, to protect when necessary the right of persons and property in the Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority ex tends" ; while the Douglas party embodied in its amendments the principle of the Dred Scott decision. Theoretically, the positions were identical, but practically they involved an important difference. The Douglas programme, although acknowledging the right of slave property to protection in the Territories, gave to the slaveholders no other guarantee than a resort to the ordinary tribunals ; where as the assertion in the Breckenridge programme of the duty of the Federal government, "in all its departments, to protect" slavery, was understood to imply the necessity of drawing up a black code for use in the Territories. " There must," says the Richmond En quirer, " be positive legislation. A civil and criminal code for the protection of slave property in the Territories ought to be provided." APOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AGGRESSION. Such has been the career of aggression pursued by the Slave Power in North America for the last fifty years. It forms, as it seems to me, one of the most striking and alarming episodes in modern his tory, and furnishes a remarkable example of what a small body of men may effect against the most vital interests of human society, when, thoroughly under standing their position and its requirements, they devote themselves deliberately, resolutely, and un scrupulously to the accomplishment of their ends. It has indeed been contended that "the action of the South on this subject [the extension of slavery], though in appearance aggressive, has in reality been in self-defence, as a means of maintaining its politi cal status against the growth of the North."* And in one sense this is true, though by no means in the sense in which the author of this argument would have us believe it. What is suggested is, that the political ascendancy of the South has been necessary to prevent its being sacrificed to the selfish ends of the Northern majority ; and that it has been with a view to this object — security against Northern rapacity — and not at all on its own account, that the extension of slavery has been sought. The policy of slavery extension by the South is thus represented as but a means to an end — that end being the legitimate development of its own resour- * Spence's American Union, p. 107. 222 AGGEESSION OF THE SLAVE POWER ces. Such is the theory. One more strikingly at variance with the most conspicuous facts of the case it would perhaps be difficult to imagine. The extension of slavery sought as a means to an end ! and that end free trade, fiscal equality, and the internal develop ment of the Southern States ! Why, if these were the real objects of the South, where was the need, and what was the meaning, of secession ? They were all secured to it by the Cincinnati platform ; they had all been advocated by Mr. Douglas. Why then reject the Democratic manifesto and the Demo cratic candidate, and break with the Democratic party — if this was all that was sought ? Were state rights threatened by the Cincinnati platform ? Was Mr. Douglas a protectionist ? Yet if the South had not broken with this party — a party whose motto was state rights and free trade, a party which regarded slavery with something more than indul gence — the Democratic organization might never have been shaken, and the South might still have been in possession of the Federal Government. " But why discuss on probable evidence notorious facts ? The world knows what the question between the North and South has been for many years, and still is. Slavery alone was thought of, alone talked of. Slavery was battled for and against, on the floor of Congress and in the plains of Kansas ; on the slavery question exclusively was the party con- IN WHAT SENSE DEFENSIVE. 223 stituted which now rules the United States ; on slavery Fremont was rejected, on slavery Lincoln was elected ; the South separated on slavery, and proclaimed slavery as the one cause of separation."* But, though not true in the sense suggested by the English champions of the Southern cause, there is a sense in which it is strictly true that the aggres sions of the Slave Power have been defensive move ments. This is indeed the essence of the case which I have endeavoured to establish. For I have en deavoured to show that, while the economic necessi ties of the South require a constant extension of the area of its dominion, and while its moral necessities require no less urgently a field for its political ambition, it is yet, from the peculiarity of its social structure, incapable of amalgamating with societies of a different type, and has no objects which it can pursue with them in common ; and that, conse quently, it can only attain its ends at their expense. Tt must advance ; it cannot mix with free societies ; and, where these meet it in the same field, it must push them from its path. In this sense it must be allowed that the aggressive movements of the South have been but efforts prompted by the instincts of self-defence ; but whether the fact, when thus under- stood, is likely to help the argument of those who employ it, it is for them to consider. It is sug- * Mr. Mill in Fraser's Magazine for February, 1862. 224 THE APOLOGY ADMITS THE CHARGE. gested, indeed, that this necessity of aggression arises from the relative inferiority of the South in wealth and numbers — that its encroachments are but " means of maintaining its political status against the growth of the North." But in all political confederacies particular members or groups of members must be inferior to other members or groups, or to the rest combined, and if this were a reason for political separation, there could be no such thing as political union. The Southern States are not more inferior in wealth and numbers to the Northern than is Ireland to Great Britain, or Scotland to England and Ireland ; yet neither Ireland nor Scotland is compelled in self-defence to pursue towards the more powerful confederation of which they severally form a part a policy of aggression. Why should it be different with the Southern States of the Union ? Let the champions of the South address themselves to this problem, and if they can solve it without being brought at last to slavery as the ultimate cause of all other dis. sensions — the one incompatibility in the case — they will show more ingenuity than they have even yet displayed. I venture to suggest that solution which has been foreshadowed by De Tocqueville, and which is at once the most obvious and the most profound. The South has been compelled to pursue a policy of aggression towards the North, not be- ATTEMPT OF JOHN BROWN. 22^ cause it is less rich or less populous, but because it is different, and all the differences which divide North and South have originated in slavery — in an institution which prevents the growth of interests, ideas, and aims in which free societies can share, and which can prosper only by perpetually en croaching on their sphere.* * Some explanation, perhaps, is needed why in the foregoing sketch no mention has been made of one of the most signal and devoted acts of heroism in modern times — the attempt of John Brown to open a guerilla warfare against slavery in Virginia. The omission has been made designedly. The enterprise, however worthy of being recorded, having yet originated exclusively in the noble heart of the man who conducted it, and having been carried into operation without the connivance of any considerable party in the United States, could not properly be included in a sketch of which the object was to trace the working of those parties. The effort stood apart from the combination of agencies which were working towards the same end ; yet it would not be correct to say that it was without influence on the cause which it was designed to serve. Its connexion with the history of the movement appears to have been this. The alarm which the attempt created in the South had the effect of strengthening the influence of the extreme party there, and of transferring the conduct of affairs in the Slave States from such men as Hammond and Hunter, Wise and Clingham, to such men as Jefferson Davis, Stephens, and Yan- cey — from the representatives of the Border to those of the Cotton States, (See Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1860, pp. 553-555-) li can scarcely be doubted that this hastened the split in the Demo cratic party, and thereby the triumph of the Eepublicans. In this manner the enterprise of John Brown conduced directly to the present crisis, and, through this, we may now with some confidence assert, to the downfall of the great crime against which he had 226 ITS PLACE IN CURRENT HISTORY. sworn undying enmity. The reflection will be welcome to those who would deplore that an act of such serene self-devotion should be performed in vain. " Actions of the just Smell sweet in death, and blossom in the dust." The reader who desires to see a faithful and spirited sketch of this worthy representative of the sturdy virtue of the Pilgrim Fathers is referred to the Life and Letters of Captain John Brown, edited by Eichard D. Webb. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1861. -7 CHAPTER VIII. THE DESIGNS OF THE SLAVE POWEK. WE have traced in the foregoing chapter the career of the Slave Power. In the present it is proposed to consider its probable designs. This, indeed, might well seem to be a superfluous inquiry ; since, if we have correctly appreciated the past history of that Power, and the motives which have carried it to its present perilous attempt, we shall not easily err as to the objects which it would pursue in the event of that attempt being successful. Combinations of men do not in a moment change their character and aims ; of all combinations aristocracies are the most persistent in their plans ; and of all aristocracies an aristocracy of slaveholders is that the range of whose ideas is most limited, and whose career, therefore, is least susceptible of sudden deviation from the path which it has long followed. Nevertheless, it will not be expedient to take for granted what would seem to be in such little need of proof ; for there are those who tell us that this party, whose whole history has been a record of successful aggression and of pretensions rising with each success, has engaged in this last grand effort 228 ESSENTIAL CHARACTER OF SLAVE SOCIETY from motives the reverse of those which have hither to notoriously inspired it ; and who would have us believe that the Slave Power, which in the space of half a century has pushed its boundary from the foot of the Alleghanies to the borders of New Mexico, and which, from the position of an ex- ceptional principle claiming a local toleration, has reached the audacity of aspiring to embrace the whole commonwealth in its domain — that this Power has suddenly changed its nature, and, in now seeking to secede from the Union, aims at nothing more than simple independence — the privi lege of being allowed to work out its own destiny in its own way. This assumption, indeed, however paradoxical to those who are familiar with the exploits of the Southern party, underlies most of the speculation which has been current in this country upon the probable consequences of a severance of the Union, and is that which nas procured for the cause of secession the degree of countenance which it has enjoyed. It will therefore be desirable to consider how far the basis of the assumption is warranted — how far the altered position of the South — suppos ing it to make its ground good in the present struggle — is calculated to affect the character which it has hitherto sustained, and to convert an un- UNCHANGED BY INDEPENDENCE. 229 scrupulous and ambitious faction into the moderate rulers of an inoffensive state. And here we must advert to principles already established. We have seen the causes which have made the Slave Power what it is : — in its new posi, tion which of these causes will cease to operate ? Slavery is to remain the " corner stone " of the re public more firmly set than ever. The economic and moral attributes of the South will therefore continue to be such as slavery must make them. Cultivation will be carried on according to the old methods : the old process of exhaustion must, there fore, go on ; and thus the necessity for fresh soils will be not less urgent under the new regime than under the old. The stigma which slavery casts on indus try will still remain : there will, therefore, still be an idle and vagabond class of mean whites ; and, since cultivation must still be contracted to the narrow area which is rich enough to support slave labour, there will, as now, be the wilderness to shelter them. There they must continue to drag out existence, lawless, restless, incapable of improvement, eager as ever for filibustering raids on peaceful neighbours. Lastly, the moral incidents of slavery must remain such as we have traced them. The lust of power will still be generated by the associations and habits of domestic tyranny, and the ainbition of slave- 230 INHERENT VICES OF THE SLAVE POWER holders will still connect itself with, that which is the foundation of their social life, and offers to them their only means of emerging from obscurity. In a word, all those fundamental influences springing from the deepest roots of slave society, which have concurred to mould the character and determine the career of the Slave Power while in connexion with the Union, will, after that connexion has been dissolved, continue to operate with unabated energy. Nor does this adequately represent the case. While the same motives to ambition will remain, the ap petite for power will be still further stimulated by the exigencies of its new position. Connected with the North, the Slave Power was sustained by the prestige of a great confederation. Through the medium of its government it was brought into harmonious relations with free countries ; under the aegis of its protection it enjoyed almost complete immunity from foreign criticism. It so happened, too, that, during the chief period of its connexion with the Union, the South contrived to hold the reins of government in its own hands, and was thus enabled in the prosecution of its designs to wield a power far greater than its own, and to compass ends which, in the absence of such support, could not have failed to call up in other countries effectual opposition. But, separated from the North, it will neither command the same resources nor INTENSIFIED BY ITS NEW POSITION. 23 I enjoy among foreign powers the same consideration. Its position will be one of absolute isolation from the whole civilized world : it will be compelled to encounter without mitigation the concentrated re probation of all free society. Such a position will only be permanently tenable on one condition — that of vastly augmenting its power. The South will not be slow to discover this ; and thus, by more powerful inducements than it has yet experienced, the Slave Power will be precipitated upon a new career of aggression. These considerations apply to every conceivable hypothesis as to the terms on which the independ ence of the Southern Confederacy may be accom plished. But, in order to bring out more distinctly the views which are likely to govern this body as an independent power, it will be convenient to consider the case on three distinct suppositions. We may suppose, first, that the independence of the Slave Republic is recognized on the terms of permanently limiting its area to those portions of the South which are already definitely settled under slavery. Or, secondly, we may suppose its independence to be recognized on the condition of its being restricted for the present to the above limits, but with liberty of colonizing, and, after colonization, of annexing the unsettled districts on equal terms with the North 232, POSSIBLE CONDITIONS OF INDEPENDENCE. — the question of free or slave institutions being left to be determined by some principle analogous to squatter sovereignty. Thirdly, we may suppose an equal division of the unsettled portions of the public domain between the contending parties, the South taking that portion which lies westward of its own boundary, including the Indian Territory and New Mexico. Taking the first of these suppositions — the recog nition of the independence of the South on the terms of being permanently confined within the limits of country already settled under slavery — this would involve a considerable curtailment of the present area of the Slave States. Extensive districts included in this area cannot in any correct sense be said to be settled at all ; and others are settled under freedom. The latter observation applies to large portions of Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, which would, therefore, on the hypothesis we are at present con sidering, pass to the side of the North ; the former applies to Texas, and, in a considerable degree, to Ar kansas. Thus, Texas, comprising an area of 274,356 square miles — an area greatly larger than that of France — contained in 1850 but 58,161 slaves; and Arkansas, extending over 52,198 square miles — an area larger than that of England — contained but 47,100 slaves. Districts in which the slaves are not more numerous than this — albeit they may have LIMITATION OF SLAVERY TO ITS PRESENT AREA. 233 been enrolled as slave states to meet the political exigencies of the Slave Power — cannot be said to have been yet appropriated to slavery. The task of their colonization is yet to be performed ; and on the supposition, therefore, that the Slave Power were re stricted within the country which it has really set tled, these districts with the others would pass from its grasp. Now, what future would lie before the Slave Power in the event of its being shut up within these limits ? It seems to me we can have little difficulty in forecasting its destiny. If there be any truth in the best established conclusions, independ ence upon such terms could only be the prelude to an early overthrow of the present social and political fabric of the South. Once confine the operations of slavery to the tracts which it already occupies, and the ultimate extinction of the system becomes as cer tain as the ultimate surrender of the garrison of a beleaguered town which is absolutely cut oif from relief. Emancipation would be gradually but surely forced upon slaveholders by irresistible causes ; and scope would at length be given for the resuscitation of society upon wholesome principles. Each year would bring, on the one hand, an increase of the slave population, and on the other — as the soil de teriorated under the thriftless methods of slave culture — a diminished area of land suitable for its employment ; and the process would continue till, 234 KESULTS OF THIS PLAN. in the words of Judge Warner, "both master and slave would be starved out." The process of decay would commence in the older states. There would be a fall in the price of slaves : breeding would no longer be profitable ; and thus the single prop which has for fifty years supported slavery in those states would be at once withdrawn. For a time the work- ing states might not be losers, and might even be gainers by the change. The price of labour might fall more rapidly than their lands would deteriorate. But it would be for a time only. The decreasing pro ductiveness of the slave's exertions would at length reach the point at which the returns from them would not equal the cost of his support, and then the progress towards the catastrophe would be rapid. The fate of the older states would overtake every portion of the slave domain ; and the whole body of slaveholders would be compelled to face the fearful problem of doing justice to four million victims of their own and their ancestors' wrong. It is not to be supposed, however, that the solution would be postponed to the last moment. So soon as the end came distinctly into view, provision would doubtless be made to meet the inevitable change ; and the gradualness of the process would allow time for the action of palliative influences. Such, it seems to me, would be the result of independence on the terms involved in the first hypothesis. In such terms, SECOND CONDITION OF INDEPENDENCE. 235 however, we may be well assured, the Southern leaders, fully understanding as they do their own case, would only acquiesce after complete subju gation. But, secondly, we may assume, as the condition of Southern independence, that the unsettled portions of the public domain (including under this expres sion, besides the Territories technically so called, the greater part of Arkansas and nearly the whole of Texas) should be open for slave colonization, while a like liberty should be accorded for free settlement ; and we have now to consider what would be the effect of its position, as thus determined, on the fortunes of the Slave Power. Now I think it is plain that, in view of the competition which such a determination of the question would inevitably engender, the necessity would at once be forced upon the South of maintaining a footing in the unsettled districts at whatever cost. The attractions offered by the fertile soils and fine river systems of Texas and Arkansas could not fail to draw from the North, on the one hand, and from California, on the other, crowds of free settlers, who would quickly establish themselves upon the most eligible sites. If the South did not proceed with equal energy, it would find itself forestalled at every point. A cor don of free states would in no long time be drawn around its border, barring its advance towards the 236 TERRITORIES OPENED ALIKE TO rich lands of Mexico, and throwing it back upon its exhausted fields. Is it likely that the Slave Power would quietly contemplate this consummation, — that it would look forward to what Mr. Spence aptly calls " the painful process of strangulation," without making an effort to break the bands which were gradually but surely closing around it ? The sup position is incredible. Freedom and slavery would therefore once more renew their race in the colo nization of the Territories, And on what grounds could the South hope for success in such a contest ? The mortifying lesson taught in Kansas has not been forgotten. The South knows well that a re newal of the contest under conditions which then brought signal defeat must inevitably lead to a like result. But the conditions of the new trial of strength would, in one respect at least, be far less favourable for the Southern cause than those which proved disastrous in Kansas. The Slave Power would no longer find an accomplice enthroned at Washington. What happened in Kansas, therefore, would of necessity be repeated in Texas and New Mexico ; the South would be out-colonized by its rival, and the goal would appear in no distant view. There would be but one escape from this fate — such a rapid increase of its disposable slave population as would supply the defect from which it suffered in its former attempts ; and this increase could only he FREE AND SLAVE COLONIZATION. — RESULTS. 237 accomplished in one way — a revival of the African slave trade. The revival of this trade would, ac cordingly, in the event we are considering, become a vital question for the South. Whether the measure would really prove effectual for the purpose designed is a question which I do not think we have sufficient data to resolve ; but that such would be the case is undoubtedly the opinion of the Southern leaders. " We can divide Texas into five slave states," says the Vice-president of the Southern Confederation, " and get Chihuahua and Sonora, if we have the slave popu lation ; but unless the number of the African stock be increased we have not the population, and might as well abandon the race with our brethren of the North in the colonization of the Territories. Slave states cannot be made without Africans." " Take off," says Mr. Gaulden of Georgia, " the ruthless re strictions which cut off the supply of slaves from foreign lands . . . take off the restrictions against the African slave trade, and we should then want no protection, and I would be willing to let you have as much squatter sovereignty as you wish. Give us an equal chance, and I tell you the institution of slavery will take care of itself." From all this it seems to follow — assuming a separation on the terms of an open field for free and slave colonization over the still unsettled districts — that the only chance of permanently establishing the Southern Republic on 238 THIRD CONDITION OF INDEPENDENCE. that " corner stone" which its builders have chosen, would lie in reopening the African slave trade, and rapidly increasing the supply of slaves ; and that the Southern leaders would in the contingency sup posed, at once adopt this expedient I cannot for a moment doubt. As we have seen in a former chap ter, the trade had actually been commenced on an extensive scale before the breaking out of the civil war ; and, with vastly more urgent reasons for re viving it, while there would be entire freedom from the restraints of Federal legislation, it is difficult to believe that there would be any hesitation about re curring to the same course. But there is yet another condition under which the independence of the South may be regarded. We may suppose that the Union is dissolved on the terms of an equal division of the unsettled districts between the contending parties. This arrangement would probably satisfy the utmost aspirations of the Southern party. It would probably also — so far as any distinct ideas on the subject exist — fall in with the conception of an independent South which for the most part rises before those who in this country take the Southern side, including, it may be ob served, some whose sincerity in disclaiming all sympathy with slavery it is impossible to doubt. It becomes, therefore, of importance that the conse- EQUAL PARTITION OF THE TERRITORY. 239 quences involved in this mode of establishing South ern independence be carefully examined. The argument by which the support of the South ern cause, understood as I have just stated it, is reconciled with the avowal of anti-slavery opinions, is one with the basis of which the reader is now fami liar. It is this, that under the proposed arrange ment the limits of slavery would be fixed ; and that, this point being attained, the downfall of the system would in due time follow. " The Southern Con federacy, hemmed in between two free and jealous neighbours [the Northern States and Mexico] will henceforth see its boundaries, and comprehend and accommodate itself to its future conditions of na tional existence. The moment slavery is confined definitively with its present limits, according to the best opinions, its character becomes modified and its doom is sealed, though the execution of the sentence may seem to be relegated to a very distant day."* This theory, it will be remarked, involves a sus picious paradox. It supposes that the most com plete success which the South can hope for in the present war would effectually defeat the precise object for which the South has engaged in war. It supposes that Englishmen know more of the real necessities of slavery than the men whose lives have * North British Review for February, 1862, p. 269. 240 DEFENCE OF THIS SCHEME. been spent in working the system, and who have now staked them on an attempt to establish it upon firm foundations. Before accepting so improbable a doctrine, it will be worth considering whether there may not be more to be said for the wisdom of Mr. Jefferson Davis and his friends, than those would have us think who in this country favour their cause. It seems difficult to believe that those who specu late on the prospects of slavery in the manner of the writer from whom I have quoted, have attended to the geographical conditions under which, in the case supposed, the institution would be placed. The South is described as " hemmed in " between Mexico and the North. The expression implies ideas of magnitude truly American ; for the Power thus " hemmed in " would be master of a space as large as all Europe west of the Vistula, and would have at its disposal a region, still unsettled and available for slave colonization, little less extensive than the whole area of the present Slave States.* Under an arrangement which professes to provide for the ex tinction of slavery a new field would be thus secured for its extension, equal to that which now employs 4,000,000 slaves. * That is to say, the whole of those of them which are actually settled under slavery — a description which would exclude nearly the whole of Texas, Florida, and Arkansas, of which three states the aggregate slave population is less than 1^0,000. GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS IGNORED. 241 But it will perhaps be said that, whatever might be the immediate effects of Southern independence established upon these terms, still, the bounds of slavery being absolutely fixed, provision would be made for its ultimate extinction. Those opponents of slavery who find comfort in this view of the case must possess more far-reaching sympathies than I can pretend to. It may be worth their while, how ever, to consider whether even their longanimity may not in the end be balked of its reward. For, ere the time would arrive when the Slave Power, having occupied the vast regions thus secured for it, would begin to feel the restraints of its spacious prison, at least a quarter of a century would have elapsed, and at least two million slaves would be added to the present number. With this increase in the area of its dominion and in the number of its slave population, and with the time thus allowed it for consolidating its strength and maturing its plans, it cannot be doubted that the power of the South would have become indefinitely nTore formi dable than it has ever yet shown itself. And as little, I think, can it be doubted that its audacity would have grown with its strength ; for it would now, by actual trial, have proved its prowess against the only antagonist whom it has really to dread, and it would enter on its career of independence amid all the tfclat of victory. In the mood of 16 242 NORTHERN JEALOUSY mind produced by the contemplation of its achieve ments and the sense of its supremacy, is it likely that the South would be content to bridle its ambition, — much less to accept a lot, acquiescence in which would be tantamount to signing its own doom ? It will be said that the Slave Power, severed from the Union, would find itself on all sides surrounded by watchful and jealous neighbours, whose office it would be to counteract its intrigues and to hold its ambition in check ; and that, in discharging this office, the free communities of America would be sustained by the moral, and, if need were, by the physical, support of the Great Powers of Europe. It cannot be denied that there is much weight in this consideration ; yet its importance may easily be over-rated. The Northern States, once shut out from Mexico and Central America by the vast range of territory which, under this determination of the quarrel, would be alienated from their confederacy, would have little object in staying the progress of the South in that direction. It is, moreover, im portant to observe that one of the most popular projects among all sections of the Northern people, for some years past, has been the providing of rail way communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific States* — a project which, so soon as the re- * On this point at least the Republican and Democratic parties are at one. See their respective platforms. NOT A SUFFICIENT SAFEGUARD. 243 establishment of peace shall allow time for the pro secution of industrial schemes, will doubtless be resumed. Now, this idea once carried into eifect, the chief reason with the Northern people for desiring influence in the Gulf of Mexico would be removed. Again, it is not impossible that, before the time should arrive when intervention might be required, the position of affairs among the North ern States might be considerably altered. Although I am quite unable to see the ground for the appre hension now so prevalent, and apparently so influ ential, in the North, that, a severance of the Union once effected, the process of disintegration would go forward till society should be reduced to its primary elements ; still I think it cannot be doubted that the example would be contagious ; and thus it is no violent supposition, that, as in course of time a difference of external conditions among several groups of the Northern States resulted in the growth of different interests and different modes of regard ing political questions, the present would be fol lowed by future secessions, until, in the end, several communities should take the place of the existing Confederation. Now it is obvious to reflect that, were such an order of political relations once established, the Northern States would find, in the clashing interests and mutual jealousies developed among themselves, more tempting matter for diplo- 16* 244 EUKOPEAN INTERVENTION matic activity than in counteracting the designs of Southern ambition in a part of the world from which their connexion, alike commercial and poli tical, had been almost wholly cut off. And still less is European intervention to be relied upon. The Powers of Europe have doubtless strong reasons that Central America should be held by hands which they can trust ; and they would na turally be disposed to offer obstacles to the progress of a Slave Power. But Europe is far removed from the scene of Mexican intrigue ; and a European war, or even a serious complication in European politics, might easily relax their vigilance. Taking into consideration all the circumstances of the case — the period which would elapse before the newr lands could be occupied, a period during which the Slave Power would have time to organize its forces and to study the weakness of its opponents — the chances that in the interval disunion in the North, or complications of policy in Europe, would produce contingencies favourable to its designs — the persist ency of aristocracies in pushing schemes on which they have once entered — the eminent examples of this quality which the South has already furnished — the passion, amounting to fanaticism, with which it has long cherished this particular scheme — above all, the absolute necessity under which it would in the end find itself of extending its domain — who, I say, STILL LESS TO BE BELIED ON. 245 with all these circumstances in view, can feel assured that, once established on the broad basis of an em^ pire reaching from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, the Slave Power would not hold out a serious menace of realizing the vast projects of its ambition ; and that the world might not one day be appalled by the spectacle of a great slaveholding confederacy erecting itself in Central America, encircling the Gulf of Mexico, absorbing the West Indies, and finally including under its sway the whole tropical region of the New World ?* * " Vers le milieu de 1'annee 1859, il se forma dans les etats qui cultivent le coton, et specialement dans la Louisiane et le Mississipi, une association mysterieuse, dont les statuts etaient convert d'un secret inviolable, et dont les membres s'iiititulaient les chevaliers du cercle d'or. Ces chevaliers appartenaient exclusivement aux classes aisees ; ils avaient une organisation toute militaire et devaient etre pourvus d'armes. Les progres rapides de cette association atti- rerent quelque attention ; mais comme Walker parcourait a ce mo ment le sud et commen^ait les preparatifs de T expedition dans laquelle il devait perdre la vie, on crut qu'il se me"ditait un nouveau coup de main contre le Nicaragua ou centre quelqu'une des provinces du Mexique, que 1'objet de 1' association e"tait de recueillir de 1' argent et de recruter des homines pour le compte du celebre flibustier. P'autres penserent que le succes qui avait couronne les tentatives faites pour introduire des negres d'Afrique par les bouches du Mississipi avait donn6 naissance a de vastes operations de traite. Comnie il s'agissait, dans les deux cas, de violer les lois et de dejouer la surveillance des autorites federales, le mystere dont s'entourait Tassociation s'expliquait tout naturellement. Les pro- jets des chevaliers etaient beaucoup plus ambitieux cependant : ils tendaient a detacher de la confederation les etats qui cultivent le 246 MODIFICATION OF SLAVERY If there be any force in these speculations, it will be seen that Mr. Jefferson Davis and his associates were not so widely mistaken in the selection of their means as has been commonly supposed, and that they may contemplate with considerable compla cency the " euthanasia " which has been predicted for their favourite institution.* That the establish ment of Southern independence upon equal terms will " modify the character " of slavery, I am far from denying. But it is important to determine in what direction the modification will take place, and, in connexion with this subject, I shall revert to a topic to which I have already more than once re ferred, but the importance of which deserves a some what fuller consideration than has yet been given to coton pour en former une r<$publique nouvelle, dont 1'esclavage serait Tinstitution foiidamentale, et qui puiserait dans le retablisse- ment de la traite les elemens d'une rapide prosperite. Des que sa force d'expansion ne serait plus arretee par la cherte de la main- d'oeuvre, la nouvelle republique lie pouvait manquer d' absorber en quelques annees le Mexique, le Nicaragua et la Bolivie ; elle ac- querrait de gre ou de force toutes les Antilles, et foiiderait au centre du continent ame"ricain 1'dtat le plus riche et le plus puissant du monde. Le cercle cTor, c'e"taient done les pays et les lies qui forment autour du golfe du Mexique une ceinture d'une incomparable fecon- diteV' — Annuaire des deux Mondes, 1860, p. 602. * "This euthanasia of slavery [the consummation of Southern independence, as conceived by the writer] we admit to be slow and distant ; but we solemnly believe it to be both safe and certain. And, at least, it is a euthanasia — a natural and not a violent death." — North British Review for February, 1862, p. 272. INVOLVED IN THE SUCCESS OF THE SOUTH. 247 it I mean the possibility of a revival of the African slave trade. The audacity of this conception and its incon gruity with the prevailing modes of thought in Europe, and especially in England, have on this side of the Atlantic caused general incredulity as to the fact that such a project has been really entertained. It seems almost too monstrous that a party, claiming admission as an equal member into the community of Christian nations, should deliberately conceive the plan of reviving in the full light of modern civilization a scandal which has long lain under its ban. It is not then strange that the disclaimers by Southern agents of any intention on the part of the South to revive the trade have, for the most part, ob tained an easy acceptance in Europe. But those who are thus easily satisfied can scarcely have at tended to the prevailing tendencies of Southern poli tics, or be aware of the steps which, previous to the outbreak of the civil war, had been actually taken in this direction by the party now dominant in the South. £pf the strong interest of the Slave Power in the revival of the trade, in the event of its independ ence being established on any terms which give it a chance of maintaining itself in the Territories, there cannot I think be a doubt. It has been already shown that, on one supposition, the question would become absolutely vital. It would be only a choice 248 REVIVAL OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. between the reopening of the trade and acquiescence in a condition of things which would be tantamount to early extinction. On the hypothesis last consi dered, there would not, indeed, be the same vital necessity for the measure ; nevertheless, the temp, tation to it would be strong. The labour force of the South has long been unequal to the re. quirements of the planters. Of this the steady rise in the price of slaves during half a century is a sufficient proof. But, with the whole Southern Territory secured for exclusive slave settlement, the insufficiency of the home supply to meet the neces. sities of the case would be more manifest than ever. With the advance in price breeding would no doubt be stimulated in the older states ; but the process of augmentation by natural increase would be slow, while, on the other hand, the high price of labour would greatly curtail the profits of cultivation. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to believe that the planters of the South would long tolerate an impediment which stood between them and the realization of vast schemes of aggrandizement, more especially when the maintenance of the obstacle could only be justified on grounds of morality which the whole South would reject with disdain. The continued prohibition of the trade would be denounced as an unworthy subserviency to the fanaticism of foreign governments — as (to quote Ian- IRRESISTIBLE INDUCEMENTS. 249 guage which has already been employed in this cause) " branding every slaveholder in the land with the mark of guilt and dishonour."* Slavehold ers would be called upon as before, but in tones rendered more authoritative by the increased pre stige which the cause of slavery would have acquired, to remove "the degrading stigma" from "their most essential political institution," and, as the means at once of filling their pockets and clearing their fame, to repeal a law jarring alike with their moral and material susceptibilities. As opposed to these con siderations, the only counter-motive of the slightest weightf which can come into play, is the interest * Mr. John Forsyth, late minister to Mexico, in the Mobile Register. f For I do not think that the provision in the Montgomery Con stitution prohibiting the African slave trade will, by any one ac quainted with the history of the party who framed it, or with the circumstances of the particular case, be so considered. The motives which dictated the provision are very clearly set forth by Mr. Everett in the following passage of a speech delivered some months ago : — " Now, to meet this state of things and this interest, sup posed to be vital in Virginia, the skilful men that were employed in drawing up a new constitution for the Confederate States South introduced in the first place a clause prohibiting the African slave trade. This was intended to have the further effect of conciliating foreign influence ; but then the next clause was that it should always be competent for a Southern Congress to prohibit the domestic slave trade, and in the debates at Montgomery on this clause no secret was made of the intention of these provisions. It was openly said that they meant to say to Virginia : ' The other border states ONLY COUNTER-MOTIVE. of the breeding states in maintaining their mono poly. That they would have this interest in a join the Confederacy, and we allow the domestic slave trade to go on. Stand aloof from us, and we will amend that feature in the con stitution which prohibits the African slave trade ; we will supply ourselves from that quarter.' Thus you see there was at once in the same breath a bribe and a menace to Virginia, but for the timey and as far as we can judge, not with much effect. The ' Ancient Dominion ' had a character in the world. She was not willing at home or abroad to assume the position of an ancient powerful state standing aloof from such a movement as this on the causes for which its authors inaugurated it, and then, months after, joining it that she might secure to herself the melancholy privilege of continuing to stock the plantations of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisana." The party which enacted this prohibition is the party which passed and repealed the Missouri Compromise ; which accepted and repudiated the principle of the Nebraska Bill. In the former case the bargain was adhered to till the Southern party had appropriated its share of it ; in the latter till it was proved unequal to what was required of it. In both cases solemn engagements were set aside the moment they became inconvenient. Considering the circumstances under which the prohibition of the African slave trade has been passed, is it likely that it will be regarded as more sacred than the Missouri Compromise, or than the Nebraska Bill? The fol lowing passage from a Florida paper, the Southern Confederacy, will show that the validity of the enactment has been already called in question, and on precisely the same grounds as those on which the former engagements were challenged. " For God's sake, and the sake of consistency, do not let us form a Union for the express purpose of maintaining and propagating African slavery ; and then, as the Southern Congress has done, confess our error by enacting a constitutional provision abolishing the African slave trade. The open ing of the trade is a mere question of expediency, to be determined by legislative enactment hereafter, but not by a constitutional provision.1' PRESUMPTION FROM THE PAST. 251 pecuniary sense is, indeed, abundantly evident. But would this circumstance be allowed permanently to prevail against not merely the equal pecuniary interests of other states in the opposite policy, but against the requirements, in the largest sense, of the whole Slave Republic ? A consideration of the course pursued under analogous circumstances on former occasions will show the extreme improba bility of such a supposition. There is perhaps nothing more remarkable in the past career of the Slave Power than the unanimity with which the whole body of slaveholders have concurred in supporting a given policy, so soon as it was clearly understood that the public interests of slavery prescribed its adoption ; yet with the line of policy which, in view of this necessity, has been actually followed, the interests of the Slave States have been far from being equally identified. The slave-breeding states of Virginia and Kentucky had a very distinct and palpable advantage in opening new ground for slave cultivation across the Missis sippi. They thereby created a new market for their slaves, and directly enhanced the value of their principal property. But the slave- working States of Alabama and Mississippi, which were buyers, not sellers, of slaves, which were producers, not con sumers, of cotton, had a precisely opposite interest as regards this enterprise. The effect of the policy of 2J2 SACRIFICE OF PARTICULAR territorial extension in relation to them, was to raise the price of slaves — the productive instrument which they employed ; and, on the other hand, to reduce the price of cotton — the commodity in which they dealt. It at once increased their outlay and dimin ished their returns. Yet this did not prevent the whole body of Slave States from working steadily together in promoting that policy which the main tenance of the Slave Power, as a political system, demanded, A still more striking instance of the readiness to sacrifice particular interests to the poli tical ascendancy of the body is furnished by the conduct of the South in its dealings with Cuba. The annexation of this island has long been, as all the world knows, a darling project of Southern ambition. The bearing of the acquisition on the general interests of the South is very obvious. It would add to its domain a district of incomparable fertility. It would give it a commanding position in the Gulf of Mexico. It would increase its political weight in the Union. But there is one state in the South which could not fail to be injured in a pecuniary sense by the acquisition. The principal industry of the State of Louisiana is the same as that of Cuba — the cultivation of sugar. But the soils of Louisiana are far inferior to those of Cuba — so much so that the planters of that State are only able to hold their ground against the competition TO GENERAL INTERESTS. 253 of their Cuban rivals by the assistance of a high protective duty. Now the immediate consequence of the annexation of Cuba to the South would be the abolition of the protection which the planters of Louisiana now enjoy — an event which could not fail to be followed by the disappearance, in great part, of the artificial production which it sustains. Never theless, Louisiana has formed no exception to the general eagerness of the South to appropriate Cuba : so far from this, it has curiously enough happened that the man who has been most prominent among the piratical party who have advocated this step is Mr. Slidell,* the senator in Congress for the State of Louisiana. The sympathies which bind slaveholders together have thus always proved more powerful than the particular interests which would sunder them ; and whatever course the necessities of slavery, as a system, have prescribed, that the whole array of slaveholders, with a disregard for private ends, which, in a good cause, would be the highest virtue, has never hesitated to pursue. The precedents, therefore, afforded by the past history of the South would lead us to expect that, so soon as the expediency of the African slave trade, in promoting the political interests of the Slave Power, became clear, the private advantage of par- * This was the gentleman selected by Southern tact to recom mend the cause of the South to Europe. 254 SECTIONAL RESISTANCE POWERLESS ticular states would be waived in deference to the requirements of the whole Confederacy. But, though this should not be so — though the border states, when the trial came, should prove deficient in that public spirit which the working states in similar circumstances have never failed to exhibit — it is still quite inconceivable that what the public interests required should be permanently postponed to an opposition resting on such a basis. The men who now guide the councils of the Confederacy, from the moment of their accession to power to the present time, have never shrunk from any act essential to their ends : such men, having trium phantly carried their party through a bloody civil war, would hardly allow themselves to be baffled by the selfish obstinacy of a few of their number. Indeed already the particular expedient to which, in the event of protracted obstinacy, recourse might be had, has been hinted at in no obscure terms. Mr. De Bow has advocated the reopening of the African slave trade upon the distinct ground that it is necessary to extend the basis of slavery by bring ing slaves within the reach of a larger number than, at their present price, are able to purchase them. By this means, he argues, increased stability would be given to the institution in proportion as the numbers interested in maintaining it should be increased. Of the soundness of this policy from the BEFORE THE EXIGENCIES OF PUBLIC POLICY. 255 stand-point of the Slave Power there can, I think, be no question ; and for the means of carrying it out in the last resort the extreme party could be at no loss. Let the reader observe the purpose to which this argument might be turned in the event of a schism between the breeding and the working states on the point in question. It is well known that the possession of a slave is the great object of the poor white's ambition, and the most effectual means of gratifying this ambition would be to make slaves cheap. To rally, then, to the cause of free trade in slaves this numerous class would be, in deed, an easy task. Nothing more would be needed than to appeal to their most obvious interest, to give play to their most cherished passion. Every where — in Virginia and Kentucky no less than in the states of the extreme South — the opening of the African slave trade would be hailed with enthusiasm by the great bulk of the people ; and thus, whenever convenience demanded it, the resistance of an inter ested section might be overborne by the almost uni versal voice of the rest of the community. To sum up the results of this part of the discus sion : on every hypothesis of Southern independ ence, save that which would be equivalent to the early extinction of the Slave Power, the reopening of the African slave trade would be recommended to the South by almost irresistible inducements — 256 RESULTS. in one contingency by considerations which appeal to interests that are vital. The only source of op position would be the private interests of the breed ing states ; but private interests in the history of the South have always yielded to the demands of public policy, and would probably do so in this case. In the event, however, of the breeding states proving refractory, the leaders of the extreme party would have the remedy in their own hands. The protest of a narrow minority would be wholly powerless to stem the tide of popular feeling which they have it in their power at any moment to evoke. CHAPTER IX. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. WHAT is the duty of European nations towards North America in the present crisis of its history ? I answer — to observe a strict neutrality between the contending parties, giving their moral support to that settlement of the question which is most in accordance with the general interest of the world. What ground is there for European interference in the quarrel ? In the present aspect of affairs abso lutely none — none, that is to say, which would not equally justify interference in every war which ever occurred. I say, in the present aspect of affairs, for in a different aspect of affairs I can well imagine that a different course would be justifiable, and might even become a duty. Supposing free society in North America in danger of being overborne by the Slave Power, would not the threatened predomi nance in the new world of a confederacy resting on slavery as its corner stone, and proclaiming the propagandism of slavery as its mission, be an occa sion for the interference of civilized nations ? If there be reason that civilized nations should com bine to resist the aggressions of Russia — a country 258 DUTY OF EUROPE — containing the germs of a vigorous and progressive civilization — would there be none for opposing the establishment of " a barbarous and barbarizing Power " — a Power of whose existence slavery is the final cause ? But that contingency is happily not now probable ; and in the present position of the American contest there is not even a plausible pre text for intervention. It is unhappily true that our trade is suffering, that much distress prevails in our manufacturing districts, and that we are threatened with even more serious consequences than have yet been felt. But is this a plausible pretext for inter fering in a foreign war ? How can a great war be carried on without disturbing the commerce of the world ? For what purpose are blockades instituted and permitted ? To say that, because we are injuri ously affected by a blockade we will not recognize it, is simply to say that we do not choose to be bound by laws longer than it suits our convenience — is to throw away even the pretence of justice. But inter ference in the present case would be not merely immoral, it would be futile — nay, if the relief of distress be really the object of those who urge it, it would, we can scarce doubt, aggravate a hundred fold the evils it was intended to cure. For, sup posing the blockade of the . Southern ports to be raised, to what purpose would be this result if the war continued ? It would, doubtless, carry comfort NEUTRALITY. 259 to the Slave Confederacy ; it might possibly bring a few hundred thousand bales of cotton to Europe ; but, in the present condition of the South, with Northern armies encamped on its soil, it would not cause cotton to be grown, and still less would it open Northern markets to our manufactures. A fleet may raise a blockade, but it cannot compel a people to buy goods who do not want them. Inter vention in America would, therefore, fail to restore trade to its normal channels ; and it is admittedly to a disturbance in the normal channels of trade far more than to scarcity of any single commodity — to a cessation of Northern demand far more than to an interruption of Southern supply — that the dis tress now experienced in England is due.* Now the cessation of Northern demand will continue as long as the war continues ; so that the effect of intervention on manufacturing distress would de pend on its effect on the duration of the war. And what would be this effect ? On such a subject it would be absurd to speak with confidence ; but there is one historical parallel which comes so close to the present case that we should do well to ponder it. In 1792 an armed intervention of European Powers took place in France. The allied sovereigns were not less confident of their ability to impose conditions on the French people, than are those who * See the Economist, 26th April, 1862. 260 IMPOLICY OF INTERVENTION. now urge intervention in America of the ability of France and England to settle the affairs of that continent. But we know how the intervention of 1792 ended. The spirit of democracy, allying itself with the spirit of patriotism, kindled in the people of France an energy which not merely drove back the invaders from their soil, but which carried the invaded people as conquerors over the length and breadth of continental Europe. Such was the effect of a policy of intervention in the affairs of a great European nation. What reason have we to expect a different result from a similar policy pursued in America ? Has democracy in America shown less energy than in Europe ? Is its organization less effective ? Is the spirit of its patriotism less power ful ? Are the resources which it commands for war less extensive ? Or will the adversaries of demo cracy fight it with greater advantage across the reach of the Atlantic ? I am assuming that an intervention, if attempted, would be resolutely car ried out : that a mere interference by our navies would only exacerbate and prolong the quarrel is so obvious as to disentitle such a proposition to a moment's serious regard. The duty of neutrality is, therefore, in the present case as plainly marked out by the dictates of selfish policy as by the maxims of morality and law. While intervention would fail to alleviate the evils under which we suffer, it would OBLIGATION TO RENDEK MORAL SUPPORT. 2- 6 1 almost certainly add to those evils tlie calamity of a great war — a war which would bequeath to the posterity of the combatants a legacy of mutual hatred, destined to embitter their relations for cen turies to come. But the duty of neutrality is not incompatible with the rendering of moral support. We may be required to abstain from giving effect to our convic tions by force, but we can never be justly required to abstain from advancing them by moral means. Nay, so long as the conflict between good and evil lasts, the obligation to sustain the right cause by sympathy and counsel is one from which we cannot relieve ourselves. It becomes, therefore, of extreme importance to consider what is that settlement of the American contest which deserves the moral support of Europe. There are two modes of terminating the present war, either of which must, it seems to me, be almost equally deprecated by every friend of freedom and of the American people : — such a triumph of the Southern party as would give to it the command of the unsettled districts to the south and west ; and such a reconstruction of the Union as would restore slavery to its former footing in the Eepublic. It is, I think, difficult to say which of these results would be the more extensively disastrous. The one would establish, amid all the eclat of victory, a slave em- 262 TWO MODES OF SETTLEMENT pire, commanding the resources of half a continent, fired with an ardent ambition, and cherishing vast designs of aggression and conquest. The other would once more commit a moral and freedom- loving people — the main hope of civilization in the New World — to complicity with the damning guilt of slavery. The Union, restored on the principle of restricting slavery, would not indeed be the same Union as that in which the Slave Power was pre dominant. But fortune is capricious in politics as in war. A few years might bring a change in the position of parties ; and a revolution of the wheel might once again commit the central government to the propagandists of slavery. Even should this worst result not happen, the corrupting influence of the alliance would remain ; the continued con nivance at the perpetration of a great wrong would again force the Republic into degrading compliances, and the progress of political degeneracy, arrested for a moment by the shock of a violent reaction, would proceed as before. Between the evils of such a termination of the contest and the absolute triumph of the Slave Power, it would, perhaps, not be easy to decide. A year ago either of these results, almost equally to be deplored, seemed almost equally probable. The Northern people, taken by surprise, its leaders unaccustomed to power, its arsenals in the hands of EQUALLY TO BE DEPRECATED. 263 its enemies, with traitors in its public offices, divided into parties holding discordant views and recom mending different courses, unanimous only in one strong wish — a desire at all events to uphold the Union — seemed for a time prepared to make almost any concession which promised to secure this end. On the other hand, no vacillation marked the South. With the directness of men who, fixed in their ends, have little scruple in their choice of means, its leaders were urgent to precipitate the catastrophe. Their skilfully contrived treason had secured for them the principal forts and almost the whole mili tary stores of the Republic. The most experienced officers in the United States army were their trusted agents, and were rapidly passing over to their side. Elated by success and confident in their resources, it seemed, at the outset of the contest, that they had all but accomplished their daring scheme — that little remained for them but to seize upon Washington, and dictate from the capitol the terms of separation. Such was the position of affairs when the contest opened. A year has passed, and contingencies which then appeared imminent seem no longer within the range of possible events. In presence of the searching test which real danger applies to political theories, and amid the enthusiasm kindled by war, the political education of the North has made rapid progress. The true source of disaffec- 264 PRACTICAL ISSUES AT THE PRESENT TIME. tion to the Union, so long concealed by the arts of temporizing politicians, has been laid bare, and is no longer doubted. The impossibility of bringing free arid slave societies into harmonious co-operation under the same political system begins to be under stood. The absolute necessity of, at all hazards, breaking the strength of the Slave Power, as the first step towards re-establishing political society in North America, is rapidly becoming the accepted creed. Meanwhile, the advance of the Northern armies in the field has kept pace with that of opinion in the public assemblies, and, by an almost unbroken series of fruitful victories, the military superiority of the North seems now to be definitively established. In this aspect of affairs — with anti-sla very opinions making rapid way in the North, and Northern armies steadily advancing on the Southern States — the reconstruction of the Union, with slavery retained on its former footing, and still more the complete triumph of the Slave Power, may, it seems to me, be fairly discharged from our consideration. Nay, I think, the actual state of facts, taken in con nexion with the resources of the contending parties warrants us in going a step further, and holding that, in the absence of foreign intervention, the South must in the end succumb to its opponent. If this be so, what remains to be decided is this : on what terms shall the submission of the South be RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION. 265 made ? — shall it return to the Union to be ruled by the North, or secede under conditions to be pre scribed by its conqueror ? Assuming these to be the practical issues involved in the struggle at the stage to which it has now attained, I shall proceed to con sider to what determination of it the moral support of Europe should be given. It seems impossible to doubt that, at the present time, the prevailing purpose of the Northern people aims at no less than a complete reconstruction of the Union in its original proportions. The project admits of being regarded under several aspects : — how far is it justifiable ? — how far is it practicable ? — how far is it expedient ? On each of these points some remarks suggest themselves. The forcible imposition on some millions of human beings of a form of government at variance with their wishes, is an act which undoubtedly demands special grounds for its justification. Whether the South be regarded as a portion of the same nation with the North, or as a distinct people, it seems, on either view of the case, impossible that an attempt to subjugate, for the purpose of ruling, it, can be reconciled with the maxims of political morality which we regard in this country as applicable to the ordinary practice of civilized nations. If, then, these maxims admit of no exception, this branch of the argument is resolved, and the justification of the 266 SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH : present views of the North must be given up. But, writing in a nation which holds in subjection under despotic rule two hundred millions of another race, it is scarcely necessary to say that maxims which condemn, without regard to circumstances, the im position on a people of a foreign and despotic yoke are no portion of the moral code of this country. The people of India may or may not desire to be governed by Great Britain ; but assuredly the wishes of the people of India are not the grounds on which an English statesman would justify Great Britain in holding that country in subjection. It follows, then, that it is consistent with political morality, as con ceived in this country, that in certain cases the principles of constitutional government and those of non-intervention should be set aside, and that a government should compel a portion of its subjects, or a people should intervene to compel another people, to accept a form of government at variance with the wishes of those on whom it is imposed.* * " There are few questions which, more require to be taken in hand by ethical and political philosophers, with a view to establish some rule or criterion whereby the justifiableness of intervening in the affairs of other countries, and (what is sometimes fully as ques tionable) the justifiableness of refraining from intervention, may be brought to a definite and rational test. Whoever attempts this will be led to recognize more than one fundamental distinction, not yet by any means familiar to the public mind, and in general quite lost sight of by those who write in strains of indignant morality on the subject. There is a great difference (for example) between the HOW FAR JUSTIFIABLE. 267 Now, if it be admitted that circumstances can in any case create an exception to the ordinary rules of political and international practice regarded as bind ing upon civilized nations, we need have little hesi- case in which the nations concerned are of the same, or something like the same, degree of civilization, and that in which one of the parties to the situation is of a high, and the other of a very low, grade of social improvement. To suppose that the same interna tional customs, and the same rules of international morality, can ob tain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error, and one which no statesman can fall into, however it may be with those who, from a safe and unresponsible position, criticize statesmen. Among many reasons why the same rules cannot be applicable to situations so different, the two following are among the most important. In the first place, the rules of ordinary international morality imply reciprocity. But barbarians will not reciprocate. They cannot be depended on for observing any rules. Their minds are not capable of so great an effort, nor their will sufficiently under the influence of distant motives. In the next place, nations which are still barbarous have not got beyond the period during which it is likely to be for their benefit that they should be conquered and held in sub jection by foreigners. Independence and nationality, so essential to the due growth and development of a people further advanced in improvement, are generally impediments to theirs. The sacred duties which civilized nations owe to the independence and na tionality of each other, are not binding towards those to whom nationality and independence are either a certain evil, or at best a questionable good. The Romans were not the most clean-handed of conquerors, yet would it have been better for Gaul and Spain* Numidia and Dacia, never to have formed part of the Roman Em pire ] To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject. A violation of great principles of morality it may easily be ; but barbarians have no 268 SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH : tation in asserting that the present case is excep tional. What is the fact with which we have to deal ? A few hundred thousand slaveholders break loose from the political system with which they were connected, and erect a confederacy on the avowed basis of sla very. From the past history of these men, and from the condition of society presented in the country which they govern, we have the clearest proofs as to what this scheme involves. We know that it in volves the maintenance of a social system at once retrograde and aggressive — retrograde towards those on whom it is imposed, and aggressive towards the communities with which it comes into contact. We know that it involves the design of extending the power of this confederation, and, with its power, the worst form of human servitude which mankind has ever seen, over the fairest portions of the New World. We know that in all probability — with a probability approaching to certainty — it involves an attempt to revive a great scandal, the African slave trade — a scandal which all Christian nations have agreed to stigmatize, and which Great Britain in rights as a nation except a right to such treatment as may, at the earliest possible period, fit them for becoming one. The only moral laws for the relation between a civilized and a barbarous govern ment, are the universal rules of morality between man and man." — A Few Words on Non-intervention, by J. S. Mill. Frasers Magazine, December, 1859. HOW FAR JUSTIFIABLE. 269 particular has for half a century devoted her best influence, and a vast outlay of treasure, to suppress. We know that this body aims at political independ ence, not for that lawful purpose which makes political independence the first of national rights— the purpose of working out a people's proper destiny — but for a purpose which makes it the greatest of national crimes — the purpose of riveting dependence upon another race — the purpose of extending and consolidating a barbarous tyranny. Now, these being the ends for which the Southern Confederacy seeks to establish itself, is its subjugation by the North justifiable ? I hold that the right is as clear as the right to put down murder or piracy. As a nation, we, in common with civilized Europe, have proscribed as piracy the African slave trade. In the opinion of competent judges the inter-state slave trade in the South involves enormities as great as any that have been enacted on the coast of Guinea or in the middle passage ;* and it is certain that the * " I affirm that there exists in the United States a slave trade, not less odious or demoralizing, nay, I do in my conscience believe, more odious and more demoralizing than that which is carried on "between Africa and Brazil. North Carolina and Virginia are to Louisiana and Alabama what Congo is to Eio Janeiro. . . God forbid that I should extenuate the horrors of the slave trade in any form ! But I do think this its worst form. Bad enough it is that civilized men should sail to an uncivilized quarter of the world where slavery exists, should there buy wretched barbarians, and should carry them away to labour in a distant land : bad enough ! 270 SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH : purpose for which the Confederacy is established — the appropriation of the Territories for slave culti vation — cannot be carried into effect without giving a powerful impulse certainly to one, and probably to both, of those crimes. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to retreat from the position which, as a nation, we have deliberately taken up and consis tently held for half a century, we cannot deny that the overthrow of the Southern Confederacy would be a public benefit ; and, even though we should question the perfect purity of the motives of those who undertake it, the act itself must be acknow ledged as a service to the civilized world. That the overthrow of the Southern Confederacy is justifiable — so far as the duties of the North to But that a civilized man, a baptized man, a man proud of being a citizen of a free state, a man frequenting a Christian church, should breed slaves for exportation, and, if the whole horrible truth must be told, should even beget slaves for exportation, should see chil dren, sometimes his own children, gambolling around him from infancy, should watch their growth, should become familiar with their faces, and should then sell them for four or five hundred dollars a head, and send them to lead in a remote country a life which is a lingering death, a life about which the best thing that can be said is that it is sure to be short ; this does, I own, excite a horror exceeding even the horror excited by that slave trade which is the curse of the African coast. And mark : I am not speaking of any rare case, of any instance of eccentric depravity. I am speaking of a trade as regular as the trade in pigs between Dublin and Liverpool, or as the trade in coals between the Tyne and the Thames." — Lord Macaulay's Speech on the Sugar Duties. HOW FAR PRACTICABLE. 271 that community are concerned — appears to me, therefore, as clear as any doctrine in the code of political ethics. But, being justifiable, is it prac ticable ? Into the general merits of this branch of the argument it would not become me to enter ; but, without pretending to pronounce an opinion on the ability of the North to subdue the revolted states, it may be permitted me to advert to some considerations bearing upon this part of the case which do not appear to have received from those who have undertaken to discuss it that degree of attention to which their importance would seem to entitle them. The argument of those who deny the ability of the North to effect its purpose of reconstructing the Union rests, for the most part, on historical ana- logies, and, more particularly, on the successful resist ance made by the ancestors of the present belliger ents to the authority of Great Britain. Now a brief consideration will show that the present case differs from all previous examples of successful revolt in some important respects ; and we shall find that, in every instance in which the analogy fails, the dif ference points in the same direction — it indicates greater facility of conquest in the present struggle. In the parallel furnished by the revolutionary war of the last century it is an obvious point of difference that Great Britain, in that case, carried on the con- 272 SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH : test under the enormous disadvantage of being separ ated from her enemy by an intervening ocean — a disadvantage of such magnitude as, in the opinion of De Tocqueville, to detract indefinitely from the prowess of the victors — whereas now the North stands close to its foe. Such a difference is almost- enough to deprive of all force arguments drawn from the analogy of the two cases ; yet the circum stance has been scarcely adverted to by those who have most strenuously pressed the analogy. But, passing by a point which is peculiar to the compari son with the war of independence, there are others in which the present is distinguished from all pre vious examples of insurrectionary success. And, first, while the South is in the present war liable to an absolute interruption of its external trade, it is of all countries which ever existed the least capable of encountering such a crisis. I say, the South is liable to an absolute interruption of its external trade, for, notwithstanding the exploits of the Merrimac, it is quite inconceivable — having re gard to the mercantile marine and the mechanical resources of the contending parties — that the North * should not be able in the long run to maintain a permanent superiority at sea. It may, therefore, be assumed that the new Confederacy will be absolutely cut off from commercial intercourse with foreign nations ; and, this being so, it is obvious further to HOW FAR PRACTICABLE. 273 remark that of all communities in the world it is the one least prepared to meet such an emergency — the least capable of supplying its own wants. To feel convinced of this we have but to recall its industrial system — a system composed of slaves brutalized by ignorance and tyranny, accustomed to perform a few routine operations, and utterly inefficient if taken from their ordinary tasks. It is true, indeed, the crisis has compelled a certain devi ation from the old routine ; the cultivation of corn has already in some places been substituted for that of cotton. But it cannot be doubted that the change has been effected at a great loss of industrial power, and, however slaves may be turned from one kind of agricultural pursuit to another, beyond the range of agriculture they must be absolutely useless. The plantation slave of the South can never be converted into a skilled artisan : consequently all those com modities for the supply of which the South has been accustomed to rely on the industrial skill of foreign countries it must now be content to dispense with altogether. Now amongst such commodities are many which are absolutely essential for the conduct of war. The consideration, therefore, is one which touches a vital point in the ability of the South to maintain a prolonged resistance. Hitherto, by its plunder of the military stores of the United States while its leaders were in possession of the govern- 274 SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH : ment, and by the fruits of its early victories, it has been enabled to maintain itself; but, as its present supplies become exhausted and cease to be replen ished by successes in the field, it is not easy to see how this necessity can be met. Another circumstance which has been almost wholly overlooked in this argument, is the change which railways may effect in the facilities for aggres sive warfare. In none of those cases in which a war of independence has been maintained with success against the superior forces of an invader has this resource been available. This consideration applies directly to a point on which great stress has been laid by the partisans of the South — the difficulties offered to conquest by mere vastness of extent. There can, I suppose, be no doubt that this circum stance gives a great advantage to the party which is on the defensive ; but a country traversed by railways is, for practical purposes, reduced to a tenth of its real size. That the novel conditions thus imported into military tactics have not been overlooked by the commanders on either side is fully proved by the nature of their plans, which have been conceived chiefly with a view to utilizing this new arm of warfare. Thus the expeditions to Hatteras, to Roanoke Island, and to Port Royal, appear now to have been dictated by a consideration of the command conferred by these positions over HOW FAR PRACTICABLE. 275 the railways which connect the Carolinas with Vir ginia on the one hand, and with Georgia on the other. Again, the importance of Nashville, as a strategical point, consists in its being the central terminus of three grand lines, proceeding respec tively from Washington, from Richmond, and from Charleston to the West ; and the possession of Corinth was rendered important by an analogous reason. Railways have thus introduced a new element into warfare of sufficient importance to modify the whole plan of a campaign ; and railways apply directly to overcoming the impediment of distance — the circumstance which has been urged as the most insuperable obstacle to the conquest of the South.* * " This is the first great war, if we except the Italian campaign, in which railways, on any large scale, have figured in warlike ope rations. How greatly they may modify the ordinary canons of strategy it is yet impossible to tell. Already many movements have taken place, and positions been occupied and abandoned, which, except upon the supposition of the new element introduced by railways, would have been utterly irreconcilable with the old prin ciples of securing the base and protecting the flanks of an army. Where there is a railway, troops may be moved through a hundred miles in the time required to march over twenty. And, vice versa, twenty miles to be marched over may chance to neutralize the benefits of a hundred miles of rail. But not only is a new and indefinite element introduced into the calculations of military distances by the unequal means of locomotion available at different points, but in America the vastness itself of the different lines of railway gives rise to a distinct and special class of problems. It is easy to destroy 18* 276 RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION : Again, in no war of independence which has been successfully waged has the invaded nation in cluded among its inhabitants a multitude, one-third of its whole number, who were either positively hostile, or at least absolutely indifferent to the cause. Such a multitude exists in the midst of the Southern population ; and by this hostile or indif ferent multitude the whole productive industry of the country is carried on. Now, as the Federal armies advance into the Southern States, what will be the behaviour of the negro population ? They will probably do as they have done hitherto : they will fly to the Federal lines ; and though they should not rise in insurrection, they will at least cease to work. Now when the negroes cease to work, how is the South to maintain an army ? The u white trash" may be made to fight, but they will scarcely be made to work — at all events they will be unable to do both. It would seem, therefore, that, so soon as the South is once thoroughly penetrated twenty miles of railway, and even a hundred. A hundred miles were lately destroyed by the Confederates. But it would be very difficult to destroy several thousand. Moreover, the extent of the country must always make it doubtful at what point it becomes expedient to destroy so useful an auxiliary until it is found too late to do so. It follows, we think, pretty conclusively, the cardinal maxim in any American war involving large tracts of country must be to take possession of the railroads." — National Rtview, April, 1862, p. 496. HOW FAR EXPEDIENT. 277 by the Northern armies, a collapse of its productive system is inevitable. These are some of the circumstances in which the present contest in America differs from those suc cessful wars of defence with which it is usual to compare it. I am far from intending to say that the considerations which have been adduced prove the possibility of accomplishing the object which the North has now in view ; but they seem to me to show that the facilities for that purpose are greater than is commonly supposed, and they at least sug gest caution against building hasty conclusions upon inapplicable precedents. But, thirdly, assuming the reconstruction of the Union to be practicable, is it expedient ? And here we are met at once by the consideration — how is the conquered South to be governed ? I can see but one way in which this can be effected — by the over throw of representative institutions in the Southern States, and the substitution of a centralized despot ism wielded by the Federal government. I cannot imagine that there could be any escape from this course ; for, granting that in certain districts of the South there might be a considerable element of population favourable to the Union, it is impossible to doubt that in the* main the people would be thoroughly disaffected ; and how are popular insti tutions to be worked through the agency of a disaf- 278 NECESSITY OF A RECOURSE TO fected people ? A recourse to despotic expedients would, therefore, so far as we can judge, be forced upon the North. Now, it is evident that such a step involves considerations of the greatest gravity — considerations before which the citizens of the Union may well pause and ponder. If, indeed, the consequences of this policy could be certainly con fined within the designed limits, there would, per- haps, be little need for hesitation. At the worst, it would be no more than the substitution of one form of arbitrary power for another — of a civilized for a barbarous despotism — and if the new government were only equal to its task of reconstructing South ern society, its advent would be wholly a blessing. But despotic principles once introduced into the system of the Federal government, is it conceivable that their influence would end in the attainment of the object for the accomplishment of which they were at the first invoked? Is it likely that the same men, who should be exercising arbitrary authority over the whole of the Southern States, would be content, in governing the Northern, to confine them selves within constitutional bounds ? Would there not be the danger that habits acquired in ruling one division of the republic would affect modes of action in the other, and that, so soen as popular institu tions became troublesome in the working, they would be superseded in favour of the more direct DESPOTIC EXPEDIENTS. 279 and obvious expedients of despotism? Besides it must be remembered that something more would be required to govern a disaffected South than a staff of officials. The bureaucracy would need to be sup ported by an army, and the army would of necessity be at the disposal of the central government. It would be easy, of course, to prescribe constitutional rules, to define with precision the limits of adminis trative authority ; but when the temper of arbitrary sway had been formed, when the example of an arbitrary system was constantly present to the eye and familiar to the thoughts, when the means of giving effect to arbitrary tastes were at hand, it is difficult to believe that the barrier of forms and definitions would be long respected, and that sooner or later the attempt would not be made to give to the principles of arbitrary government a more ex tended application. The task of holding the South in subjection would thus, as it seems to me, inevita bly imperil the cause of popular institutions in North America. Now, the loss of popular govern ment would be a heavy price to pay for the subju gation of the South, even though that subjugation involved the overthrow of the Slave Power. It is satisfactory to find that there are politicians in America who are alive to the momentous interests which this aspect of the question involves. In a remarkable speech lately delivered in New York, 280 PLAN FOR DISPENSING WITH DESPOTISM the danger to which I have adverted was very fairly and with much courage exposed. The speaker, however, contended that, by boldly following out a policy of emancipation — by striking at the root of disaffection through its cause — the danger in ques tion might be evaded. The views expressed are so important, and, looking at the recent course of events, give so much promise of becoming fruitful, that I think it right to state them in the eloquent words of their author. " Is this government, in struggling against rebel- lion, in re-establishing its authority, reduced to a policy which would nearly obliterate the line separ ating democracy from absolutism ? Is it really unable to stand this test of its character ? For this is the true test of the experiment. If our demo cratic institutions pass this crisis unimpaired, they will be stronger than ever ; if not, the decline will be rapid and irremediable, But can they pass it unimpaired ? Yes. This republic has her destiny in her hands. She may transform her greatest danger and distress into the greatest triumph of her principles. There would have been no rebellion, had there not been a despotic interest incompatible with the spirit of her democratic institutions ; and she has the glorious and inestimable privilege of suppressing this rebellion, by enlarging liberty in stead of restraining it, by granting rights instead of BY REFORMING SOUTHERN SOCIETY 281 violating them. . . . How can you rely upon the Southern people unless they are sincerely loyal, and how can they be sincerely loyal as long as their circumstances are such as to make disloyalty the natural condition of their desires and aspirations ? They cannot be faithful unless their desires and aspirations change. And how can you change them ? By opening before them new prospects and a new future. Look at the other side of the picture. Imagine slavery were destroyed in con sequence of this rebellion. Slavery, once destroyed, can never be restored. . . . Southern society being, with all its habits and interests, no longer identified with slavery, that element of the population will rise to prominent influence which most easily identifies itself with free labour — I mean the non-slaveholding people of the South. They have been held in a sort of moral subjection by the great slave-lords. Not for themselves but for them they were disloyal. The destruction of slavery will wipe out the prestige of their former rulers ; it will lift the yoke from their necks ; they will soon think for themselves, and thinking freely they will not fail to understand their true interests. They will find in free labour society their natural element ; and free labour society is naturally loyal to the Union. Let the old political leaders fret as they please, it is the free labour majority that will give to society its 282 THE CONDITION OF TIME IGNORED. character and tone. This is what I mean by so reforming Southern society as to make loyalty to the Union its natural temper and disposition. This done, the necessity of a military occupation, the rule of force, will cease ; our political life will soon re turn to the beaten track of self-government, and the restored Union may safely trust itself to the good faith of a reformed people. The antagonistic ele ment which continually struggled against the vital principles of our system of government once removed, we shall be a truly united people, with common principles, common interests, common hopes, and a common future."* Such is the spirit in which the question of recon structing the Union is now approached by some of the leading minds of the North, and such are the views which are now rapidly gaining ground through the country. While, however, readily acknowledging the proof which these speculations afford at once of a full appreciation of the real difficulties to be en countered and of philosophic boldness in meeting them, I am unable to see that the remedy suggested would obviate the danger which, it is admitted, would exist. In the reasoning which I have quoted no account appears to be taken of the element of time, so all important to a realization of the results * Speech of the Hon. Carl Schurz, delivered in the Cooper Institute, New York, 6th March, 1862. DISTURBING EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION. 283 anticipated. The abolition of slavery, it is truly said, would strike directly at the authority of the slave-lords. The stigma at present affixed to in dustry being removed, the industrial classes would quickly rise in social importance, and a free labour ing population would doubtless in the end predomi nate in the South. But these results could not be accomplished in a moment. A disloyal people would not be rendered loyal by a single stroke of the manumitter's wand — rerum imperils hominumque Tot tantisque minor, quern ter vindicta quaterque Imposita hand unquam misera formidine privet. The habits of obedience are not easily broken through, traditional feelings are powerful, and the influence of the slave-lords would probably long outlive the institution from which it derives its strength. A considerable period would, therefore, of necessity, elapse before that pervading sentiment of loyalty could be established, under the guidance of which alone, as all admit, the rule of the Union could be safely entrusted to popular institutions. But there is another result which might follow from the conquest of the South and the overthrow of slavery, the probable effects of which on the settle ment of Southern society it may be worth while for a moment to consider. Is it not probable that, in the case we now contemplate, there would be an 284 DISTURBING EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION. extensive immigration into the Southern States of free settlers from the North ? And what would be the effect of this new ingredient on the society of the South ? I imagine it would in the main be a wholesome one. The new settlers would carry with them the ideas, the enterprise, the progressive spirit of free society, and would act as a leaven of loyalty on the disaffection of the South ; but I think it is equally plain they would introduce into Southern society, at all events for some time, a new element of disturbance. They would appear there as intru ders, as the missionaries of a new social and political faith — a faith hateful to the old dominion, as living monuments of the humiliation of the Southern peo ple. Is it not inevitable that between them and the old aristocracy a bitter feud would spring up — a feud which would soon be exasperated by mutual injuries, and might not impossibly be transmitted, as a heritage of hatred, to future generations ? Now such a condition of society would be little favourable to the sudden conversion of the South to sentiments of loyalty ; and, pending this happy consummation, how is the South to be governed ? We are thus forced back upon our original difficulty — the diffi culty of governing a disaffected South, from which it seems to me the path of despotism offers the only escape. For these reasons, I cannot think that the North is TRUE POLICY FOR THE NORTH. 285 well advised in its attempt to reconstruct the Union in its original proportions. At the same time I am far from thinking that the time for peace has yet arrived. What, it seems to me, the occasion de mands, and what, I think, the moral feeling of Europe should support the North in striving for, is a degree of success which shall compel the South to accept terms of separation, such as the progress of civilization in America and the advancement of human interests throughout the world imperatively require. To determine the exact amount of conces sion on the part of the South which would satisfy these conditions is no part of my purpose. The attempt would be futile. It will suffice that I indicate as distinctly as I can that settlement of the controversy which would, in my judgment, adequately secure the ends proposed, and which on the whole is most to be desired. Any scheme for the readjustment of political society in North America ought, it seems to me, to embrace two leading objects : — ist, the greatest practical curtailment of the domain of the Slave Power ; and 2nd, the reabsorption into the sphere of free society of as much of the present population of the Slave States as can be reabsorbed without detriment to the interests of freedom. On the assumption which I have made of the ability of the Northern people to subdue the South, these two 286 PECULIAR POSITION OF conditions resolve themselves into one. The only obstacle to a complete reconstruction of the Union lies, on this assumption, in the difficulty of com bining in the same political system forms of society so different as those presented by the Northern and Southern States. We may then, for the purpose of our discussion, confine our attention to the latter of the two conditions which have been laid down. It will be remembered that, in considering, in a former chapter, the consequences of confining the Southern Confederacy within the area already settled under slavery, it was pointed out that slavery, thus restricted, would be at once arrested in its develop ment, and that the check given to the system would be first felt in the older or breeding states. In these states the profits from slavery being derived chiefly from the sale, not from the employment, of slaves, so soon as the creation of new markets for the human stock was precluded, the reasons for maintaining the institution would cease. The slave holders, obliged henceforward to look to the soil as the sole source of their profits, would be forced upon improved methods of cultivation ; and before the necessity for improved methods slavery would per force disappear. Now, this being the position of slavery in the breeding states, it is evident that, so soon as the progress of the Northern armies shall have made it clear that the Slave Power must fail in THE BORDER STATES. 287 its original design — still more when the South is menaced with positive curtailment of its dominions — the slaveholders of these states will understand that, so far as their interests are concerned, the institution is doomed. But this conviction will be brought home to them by still more cogent reasons than those which reflection on their eco nomic condition would furnish. The breeding states are also the border states, and they are therefore the states on which the evils of invasion must in the first instance fall. Already nearly the whole of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, is in possession of the Northern armies. Observe, then, the light in which, in the present aspect of affairs, the question of secession must present itself to a border slaveholder. He sees that for him the extinction of slavery is rendered certain in an early future. His slaves are flying to the Federal armies. His country is suffering all the evils of invasion. The tie which bound him to the Slave Power is hopelessly severed. In this position of affairs is it not probable that, were the opportunity of re-establishing social order upon a new basis presented to him, he would seize it, and, the old system of society having irrevocably passed away, that he would in good faith cast in his lot with a new order of things ? Such an opportunity has been created for the border states by the adoption by Congress of Mr. 288 MR. LINCOLN'S PROPOSAL; ITS OPPORTUNENESS. Lincoln's recent message, recommending a co-opera tion on the part of the Federal Government with such states as are willing to accept a policy of emancipation. The scheme, indeed, has been pro nounced in this country to be chimerical — framed less with a view to the actual exigencies of the case than to catch the applause of Europe. I venture to say that never was criticism less appropriate, or censure more unjust. Practicality and unaffected earnestness of purpose are written in every line of the message. In the full knowledge evinced of the actual circumstances of the border states, combined with the adroitness with which advantage is taken of their peculiar position as affected by passing events, there is displayed a rare political sagacity, which is not more creditable to its author than is the genuine sincerity which shines through his simple and weighty words. Had the scheme indeed been propounded at the outset of the contest (as so many well-meaning empirics among us were forward to advise) — while the Slave Power was yet unbroken, and the prospects of a future more prosperous than it had yet known seemed to be opening before it, there would have been some point in the strictures which have been indulged in, some ground for invi dious comment ; but, proposed at the present time, it is, as I venture to think, a suggestion than which FREE CULTIVATORS IN THE BORDER STATES. 289 few more wise or more important have ever been submitted to a legislative body. Returning to our argument, it has been seen that, in the event of the tide of war being decisively turned against the South, the position, alike indus trial and geographical, of the border states would greatly favour a reconstruction of society in them upon principles of freedom. Now, this result would be powerfully helped forward by another circum stance in respect to which they differ from the more southern states of the Confederacy — the pre sence in their population of a large element of free cultivators. This interest, already in some of the border states* almost balancing that of slavery, would, it is evident, in the altered condition of af fairs, rise rapidly into importance. Occupying that place in the social arrangements towards which the * For example in Missouri. The position of slavery in that state in 1856 is thus described by Mr. Weston : — " In large por tions of Missouri slavery has never existed to any important extent. The counties adjoining Iowa, ten in number, contained in 185<5 57>2'55 whites and only 871 slaves. Of the one hundred and seven counties ninety-five, occupying four-fifths of the area of the state, contained in 1856 669,921 whites, and only 57,471 slaves, or nearly twelve to one. In twenty-five of these counties there was an absolute decrease of the number of slaves from 18^0 to 1856. In the whole ninety-five counties the increase of slaves in that period was only 2,264. Slavery is not strong, and has never been so, except in twelve counties in the centre of the state, embracing about one-fifth of its area, and lying principally upon the Missouri river." — Progress of Slavery, p. 14. 19 290 FACILITIES FOR INCORPORATION. whole community was obviously tending, constantly increasing in numbers as the progress of emanci pation brought new recruits to its ranks — a nucleus of loyalty around which all the best elements of society might gather — this section of the population would easily take the lead in the politics of their several states, would give tone to the whole com munity, and determine its march. It would thus seem that, the might of the Slave Power once effectually broken, the incorporation of the border states into a social system based on industrial freedom would not present any insuper able difficulties. It would be only necessary to give support to tendencies which the actual state of things would call at once into operation. Now, what might be done in the border states, where a slave society actually exists, might, it is evident, be accomplished with much greater facility in those districts of the South which, though enrolled as slave states, have in reality yet to be colonized — for example, in Texas and Arkansas. In Texas population is represented by considerably less than one person to the square mile ; in Arkansas, by four ; and of this sprinkling of people three-fourths in both states are composed of free persons. To the recovery of these states to the dominion of freedom there would at least be no social or political obsta cles which might not be easily overcome. Arkansas THE LINE OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 29! and Texas recovered, Louisiana alone of the states on the west of the Mississippi would remain to the Slave Power ; and is it not possible that Louisiana also might be recovered to freedom ? Doubtless its pro-slavery tendencies are intensely strong ; its slave population almost equals the free ; but the state is a small one, and the prize would be worth an ex traordinary effort. Louisiana conquered, Arkansas and Texas recovered to freedom, the whole course of the Mississippi would be opened to the Western States ; and the Slave Power— shut up within its narrowed domain, bounded on one side by the Gulf of Mexico and the ocean, on the other by the line of the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, — might with some confidence be left to that process of natural decay which slave institutions, arrested in their expansion, inevitably entail. I have hitherto discussed this question with refer- ence to the interests of the Northern people on the one hand, and to those of civilization, as identified with the overthrow of the Slave Power, on the other. But there is another interest involved in the settle ment of the American quarrel which may not seem at once to be identical with either of these — the interest of the present race of negro slaves. The mode of terminating the struggle which I have indicated as that which seems to me on the whole 19* 292 THE NEGRO QUESTION. most desirable, though, if realized, it would probably bring freedom to a million of slaves, would yet, it is not to be denied, leave some three millions still in bondage ; and there are those who will probably think that this after all would be but a sorry result from the great opportunities of the present con juncture, and from the great sacrifices which it has already cost. Far wiser, it will be said, as well as more generous would it be, now that the hand has been put to the plough, not to look back till the work has been effectually accomplished, and the great wrong once for all rased out. With the aspirations of those who hold this language I trust I can sympathize ; but it seems to me that they fail to appreciate the magnitude of the problem wrhich the policy they recommend involves. No solution of that problem would be complete, or would be worthy of the enlightened views of the present time, which did not include, besides the mere manumission of the negro population, their protection against the efforts of their former masters to recover their lost power, and, no less, the provision for them of a career in the future. Now, let us suppose the first of these ends to be accomplished — emancipation to be decreed — and overlooking the objection to what would be the necessary condition of an attempt to give effect to the second — the establishment in the South of a des potic rule wielded by the central government — how, THREE CONDITIONS TO BE SATISFIED. 293 let us ask, is it proposed to provide a career for four millions of emancipated slaves ? It will be said, the land still remains to be cultivated ; and the labour of the negroes will be as necessary for its cultivation after they have been emancipated as before. The career for the emancipated negro would, therefore, be plain : he would, as a free labourer, hire his services to those who now take them by force. In a word, a population of four million slaves might be converted into a population of four million free labourers. This is, in truth, the only mode of solving the question that deserves serious atten tion ; for I do not think that the plans, of which we have lately heard something, of a wholesale re moval of negroes from the American continent — even where they are not advanced for the purpose simply of discrediting the cause of emancipation — can be so regarded. But, taking the policy of imme diate and wholesale emancipation in its best form, and judging it in a spirit of candour, is it a reasonable expectation that, looking at all the conditions of the case, the result which is contem plated would be realized, — that the negro, on the one hand, and the planter, on the other, would lend themselves to the scheme ? I am certainly not going to oppose to the proposal the exploded calumny of the incorrigible indolence of the negro. I am quite ready to admit, what nothing but the per- 294 WHOLESALE EMANCIPATION. nicious influence of slavery on the negro would ever have given a pretext for denying, and what our West Indian experiment has now conclusively estab lished,* that the negro in freedom is amenable to the same influences as the white man — that he can * A very important contribution to our knowledge on the work ing of emancipation in the West Indies has just appeared from the pen of Mr. Edward Bean Underbill, from whose work, " The West Indies, tlieir Social and Religious Condition" I extract the following testimony of Captain Darling, the present governor of Jamaica, to the capacity of the negro for freedom : — " The proportion of those who are settling themselves industriously on their holdings, and rapidly rising in the social scale, while commanding the respect of all classes of the community, and some of whom are, to a limited extent, themselves the employers of hired labour, paid for either in money or in kind, is, 1 am happy to think, not only steadily increasing, but at the present moment is far more extensive than was anticipated by those who are cognizant of all that took place in this colony in the earlier days of negro freedom. There can be no doubt, in fact, that an independent, respectable, and, I believe, trustworthy middle class is rapidly forming. If the real object of emancipation was to place the freed man in such a position that he might work out his own advancement in the social scale, and prove his capacity for the full and rational enjoyment of personal independence secured by constitutional liberty, Jamaica will afford more instances, even in proportion to its large population, of such gratifying results, than any other land in which African slavery once existed. Jamaica at this moment presents, as I believe, at once the strongest proof of the complete success of the great mea sure of emancipation as relates to the capacity of the emancipated race for freedom, and the most unfortunate instance of a descent in the scale of agricultural and commercial importance as a colonial community." — The West Indies, their Social and Religious Condition, PP- 45 8> 459- MAIN DIFFICULTY OF THE PROBLEM. 29 j appreciate as keenly independence, comfort, and affluence, and that, like him, he will work and save and speculate to obtain these blessings : neverthe less, while conceding all this, I confess I am unable to see my way to the result that is here expected. The grand difficulty to be encountered in any scheme of emancipation which proposes to convert suddenly a regime of forced into one of hired labour, is the state of feeling which slavery leaves behind it in the minds of those who have taken part in its working. With the master there is a feeling of ex asperation which leads him to thwart the operation of a system which has been forced upon him and which is odious to him, combined with a desire to re-establish under some new form his old tyranny ; while the emancipated bondman naturally desires to break for ever with a mode of life which is associated with his degradation. These principles of disturb ance were brought fully into play in the West Indian experiment ;* but they were in that case * " The House of Assembly at the time of emancipation possessed the fullest powers to remedy any defect in that great measure. But it abused its powers. Instead of enacting laws calculated to elevate and benefit the people, it pursued the contrary course. By an Ejectment Act it gave to the planters the right to turn out the en franchised peasantry, without regard to sex or age, at a week's notice, from the homes in which they had been born and bred ; to root up their provision grounds, and to cut down the fruit trees which gave them both shelter and food ; in order that, through dread of the consequences of refusal, the negroes might be driven to 296 THE WEST INDIAN EXPERIMENT. largely controlled by the condition of things in the West Indian islands. The strong arm of the British Government put an effectual restraint on the tyran nical temper of the masters ;* while in some of the islands the preoccupation of the land closed against the slave the one refuge from a hated lot. This, for example, was the case in Barbadoes, and in this island, accordingly, a system of hired industry was work on the planters' own terms. . . . Driven from his cabin on the estate by the harsh or unjust treatment of his former master, the free labourer had to build a cottage for himself. Immediately the customs on shingles for the roof to shelter his family from the seasons were more than doubled ; while the duty on the staves and hoops for sugar hogsheads, the planters' property, was greatly re duced. And when the houses were built, they were assessed at a rate which, in some parishes, bore so heavily on the occupants, as to lead to the abandonment of their dwellings for shanties of mud and boughs." — The West Indies, &c., pp. 216-218. " Some proprietors at emancipation drove their labourers from the estates, and one was mentioned who was living at the time on the north side of the island. He swore that he would not allow a ' nigger ' to live within three miles of his house ; of course the man was speedily ruined." — Hid. pp. 268, 269. * " If the House of Assembly has had any policy at all in its treat ment of the labouring classes, it has been a ' policy of alienation.' Only the perpetual interposition of the British government has prevented the enfrachised negro from being reduced to the condition of a serf by the selfish partisan legislation of the Jamaica planters. . . . As slaves the people were never instructed in husbandr}^ or in the general cultivation of the soil ; as free men, the legislature has utterly neglected them, and they have had to learn as they could the commonest processes of agriculture. No attempt has been made to provide a fitting education for them ; for the paltry ITS LESSON. 297 easily introduced. But the case of Barbadoes was exceptional, and, in the main, emancipation in the West Indies has issued, not in the conversion of a population of slaves into a population of labourers working for hire, but in the creation of a numerous class of small negro proprietors, each cultivating in independence his own patch of ground. This result, however, is not that which is contemplated by those who desire wholesale emancipation in the Southern States, and indeed — owing to influences which had little existence in the West Indies, but which would be brought to bear upon the American negro — is not to be expected. But, passing by this, the thing at present to be attended to is that, wherever the waste land was abundant, the experiment, so far as the point at present under consideration is concerned, broke down. The plantations were extensively deserted, and the negroes, instead of becoming hired labourers, became peasant farmers on the vacant grant of some £2,500 a year cannot in any sense be said to be a provision for their instruction. . . . Speaking of this feature of Jamaica legislation, Earl Grey, writing in 1853, says :— 'The Statute Book of the island for the last six years presents nearly a blank, as regards laws calculated to improve the condition of the population, and to raise them in the scale of civilization.' .... Happily the present governor, following in the steps of many of his predecessors, deals impartially with every class, strives to prevent as far as possible the mischievous effects of the selfish policy that has been pursued, and exerts himself to rescue the government from the grasp of personal interest and ambition." — Ibid. pp. 222, 223. 290 NATURAL DIFFICULTIES OF EMANCIPATION. land. Such has been the result of emancipation in the West Indies. Those principles of disturbance which slavery leaves after it, though largely con trolled, have yet been sufficiently powerful to pre vent the general establishment of a system of hired labour.* Now what would be the chance of replacing negro slavery with hired labour in the Southern States ? If we look to the condition of society there, we find that the usual disturbing causes exist in exaggerated force, while there is little to counteract them in the other conditions of the case. Nowhere else has pro-slavery fanaticism been so strong ; the belief in the moral soundness of the institution has been nowhere so implicit ; nowhere, therefore, would the introduction of a system of * The following is Mr. Underbill's conclusion as to the general results of the experiment in Jamaica : — " Emancipation did not, indeed, bring wealth to the planter ; it did not restore fortunes already trembling in the grasp of mortgagees and usurers ; it did not bring back the palmy days of foreign commerce to Kingston, nor assist in the maintenance of protective privileges in the mar kets of Great Britain ; it did not give wisdom to planters, nor skill to agriculturists and manufacturers ; but it has brought an amount of happiness, of improvement, of material wealth and pro spective elevation to the enfranchised slave in which every lover of man must rejoice. Social order everywhere prevails. Breaches of the peace are rare. Crimes, especially in their darker and more sanguinary forms, are few. Persons and property are perfectly safe. The planter sleeps in security, dreads 110 insurrection, fears not the torch of the incendiary, travels day or night in the loneliest EXAGGERATED IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 299 free industry have to encounter on the part of the masters such violent prejudices. Again, the desire of the emancipated negro to break with his former mode of life could scarce fail to be here extremely strong ; for, although the treatment of the slaves was perhaps harsher in the West Indies than it has for the most part been in the Confederate States, the degradation of the race had neither there nor else where reached so low a point ; and, as a principle of repulsion, the feeling of shame would probably be not less powerful than that of hatred. On the other hand, who can suppose, — bearing in mind the un worthy antipathy to the negro which still animates the great majority of the American people, and which solitudes without anxiety or care. The people are not drunkards, even if they be impure ; and this sad feature in the moral life of the people is meeting its check in the growing respect for the mar riage tie, and the improved life of the white community in their midst. . . . The general prospects of the island are improving. Estates are now but rarely abandoned, while in many places portions of old estates are being brought again under cultivation. It is admitted by all parties that sugar cultivation is profitable. At the same time, it is very doubtful whether any large proportion of the emancipated population will ever be induced to return to the estates, or, at least, in sufficient numbers to secure the enlargement of the area of cultivation to the extent of former days. Higher wages will do somewhat to obtain labourers, and they can be afforded, and the return of confidence will bring capital ; but the taste and habit of independence will continue to operate, and induce the agricultural classes to cling to the little holdings which they so industriously occupy."— The West Indus, pp. 455, 457- 300 IMPOSSIBILITY OF PROTECTING THE NEGRO. perhaps emancipation would do little to remove ; bearing in mind the effects of a long complicity with slavery on the traditions of the Federal government — who, I say, impressed with these facts, can suppose that the negro of the Southern States would in that people and government find efficient protectors ? \Yould there be no fear that the protector might have less sympathy with the victim than even the tyrant against whom protection was claimed ? But even on the assumption that the spirit of the Fede ral government and of the Northern people was excellent, would the task of protecting the negro be feasible in the South ? Throughout the whole slave domain, but especially in the more southern of the Slave States, there are, as we know, vast regions of wilderness. Over these wanders a miserable white population, idle, lawless, and cherishing for the negro a contempt, which, on his being raised to their level by emancipation, would be quickly converted into hatred. Now, remembering what has happened in those West Indian islands which offer the nearest analogy to the present case — remembering what has occurred, for example, in Trinidad* — is it not almots * "Three years after emancipation, in 1841, the condition of the island [Trinidad] was most deplorable : the labourers had for the most part abandoned the estates, and taken possession of plots of vacant land, especially in the vicinity of the towns, without purchase or lawful right. Vagrancy had become an alarming habit of great numbers ; every attempt to take a census of the population was COERUPTING INFLUENCE OF THE MEAN WHITES. 301 certain that, so soon as emancipation was decreed, the negroes would betake themselves to these wilds ? and, dispersed over this vast region, what would be their fate ? How could they be protected ? How could they be trained to a higher mode of life ? They would there encounter the white man in a condition as wretched as their own. His example could not fail to influence them. They would ac quire his vagabond tastes, and emulate his idleness. They would be wholly at his mercy. Efficient pro tection would be impossible over so vast a region. The growth of regular industry would be hopeless ; and the too probable result would be that the whole South would be abandoned to the dominion of na ture, and negro and white man go to ruin together. On the other hand, looking at the problem of baffled by the frequent migrations which took place. Criminals easily evaded justice by absconding to places where they were un known, or by hiding themselves in the dense forests which in all parts edged so closely on the cleared lands. Drunkenness increased to an enormous degree, assisted by planters who freely supplied rum to the labourers to induce them to remain as cultivators on their estates. High wages were obtained only to be squandered in amusement, revelry and dissipation ; at the same time, these high wages induced a diminished cultivation of food, and a corresponding increase in price and in the importation of provisions from the neighbouring islands and continent. The labourers steadily refused to enter into any contracts 'which would oblige them to remain in the service of a master : this would too much have resembled the state of slavery from which they had but just emerged." — The West Indies, &c., p. 68-69. 302 PROGRESSIVE EMANCIPATION emancipation, as it would present itself under that settlement of the American question which I have ventured to indicate as desirable, I am unable to see that it would involve any difficulty which a govern ment, really bent on accomplishing its object, might not be fairly expected to overcome. In the first place, it would, as thus presented, at once assume more manageable porportions. The evil might be dealt with in detail, .and the experience acquired in the earlier efforts might be made available at the further stages of the process. The attack would in the first instance be directed against the weakest parts of the system — the institution in the border states. In those states, not only is slavery less strongly established than in the states further south, it is also milder in its character. The relation sub sisting between master and slave being less embitter ed, the obstacles to a re-establishment of their con nexion upon a new footing would be less formidable. The wilderness, indeed — the greatest difficulty of the case — would not be wholly absent even in the border states ; but its dimensions would here be less vast, and these, as the abolition of slavery drew a fresh immigration from the adjoining states of the North, would in all probability be rapidly reduced. Even should the negroes repair to the wilds in consider able numbers, the case would not be so hopeless. They would meet here in many districts, not the MORE HOPEFUL. 303 " mean whites," but a population of free cultivators, whose example, it is not to be doubted, would exer cise on their character and pursuits an influence as wholesome as that of the others would be baneful. In these peasant cultivators the free negro would behold industry in its most respectable and most prosperous form ; and, with their example before him, he would probably settle down into the same condition of life with them. But while in the reannexed states a career would be provided for the emancipated negro, his brother, still left in bondage in the South, would ere long find that for him also a new era was opening. Cut off from the rich virgin soils of the south-west, the older states of the Confederacy would quickly reach the condition of Virginia and Maryland. The ine vitable goal would soon come in sight, and the foreseen necessity of a change would gradually reconcile the minds of the planters to a policy of emancipation. The spirit in which the task would be undertaken, when prescribed to them as it were by Nature herself, would, it may be fairly expected, be far different from that with which it would be encountered, if enforced at the bayonet's point by hostile and hated Northerners. Self-interest, no longer overborne by passion or pride, would teach the necessity of calmly considering a position of which the urgency could no longer be concealed 304 ULTIMATE EXTINCTION OF SLAVERY. or evaded ; and the full knowledge and large expe rience of the planters might be expected to conduct them to that solution which would be most in accord ance with the welfare of the negro and their own. Meanwhile, the policy of emancipation once com menced, its effects would not be confined to the states which adopted it. The working states, deprived of their supply of labour from the North, would be compelled to adopt new maxims of management. The life of the slave would become for his master an object of increased consideration ; his comfort would be more attended to, and his condition would rapidly improve. With the progress of time the destiny of the older States would overtake these also, and thus, by a gradual but sure process, the greatest blot on modern civilization would be expunged from American soil. THE END. R. 1>. WEBB AND SON PRINTERS, 177, GREAT BRUNSWICK-STREET, DUBLIN. DAV USF 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. _Mlllfls^ _ 22 11 *e*m i ,j — M/W i U 'CS-u AW - LD 2lA-60m-3,'65 (F2336slO)476B General Library . University of California Berkeley 0194 ' :'*-,• UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY